


The Scottish Werewolf of Hackney

by Nehszriah



Series: Fae and Fantasy Doctor Who AUs [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Adrian tries to be a good friend and mostly succeeds, Alternate Universe, Blood, Blood and Gore, Cryptids, Cryptozoology, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fantasy AU, Gore, Griffins, Happy Ending, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Nightmare Unicorns, Nightmares, Pard(s) - Medieval Bestiary Creature, Prompt Fic, Slow Burn, Some Swearing, Twelve and Adrian both have beards at one point, Twelve is literally an indignant Scots terrier, Unicorns, Werepuppies, Werewolf AU, Werewolves, are werepuppies a thing? they are now, hiking holiday gone wrong, hybrid babies, lots of waiting, more tags to come, poor Dave is just worried about his daughter, the TARDIS is nothing but a Soviet-era hooptie and there's nothing anyone can say to change my mind, there is a Trabant joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-06-26 11:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/pseuds/Nehszriah
Summary: Clara Oswald doesn’t believe in faerie stories. She claims she stopped believing when she was eight, but she really stopped around the time her fiancé died. Though, in all honesty, nothing could have prepared her for when a dog she picked up from the shelter a year later turned into a Scotsman right there in her kitchen…-_-_-_-_-_-_-A werewolf!Twelve/Clara AU and I have no idea what I'm doing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So the prompt for this was just to have a werewolf!Twelve AU. It took a while, but I began churning a thing out, and it ended up being this. There is more than just this one chapter, so hold tight and I'll try to finish it off before Halloween (with any luck).
> 
> Contains: violence, gore, some stuff that's probably pretty gross overall, a sloooowww as flip burn because what the actual frickle frackle is this AU, another instance where I'm angry with myself bc Danny is dead via canon, Dave Oswald just trying to be helpful, cryptids bc they are so much fun, and a lack of knowledge as to what werewolf AUs are supposed to be so sorry if I don't hit your favorite trope.

It had been nearly a year since Clara Oswald’s life had turned upside down. She double-checked the calendar and her heart sank at the truth of it all. A year as of the following Saturday was the anniversary of what Scotland Yard had referred to as one of their most baffling crime sprees they had seen in decades: a man had stolen a vehicle while high on an unknown hallucinogen and seemingly pretended that he was in one of those bad taxi-driver games all throughout the East End before being taken down by the police. When all had been said and done, innumerable vehicles had been clipped and several people rushed to hospitals.

There was only one victim, however, who had not been rushed to anything, for he had been pronounced dead on the scene, and that man was Danny Pink… her fiancé for all of three days.

She threw a pillow at the calendar on her bedroom wall and buried her face in one of those still on her bed. It made her feel stupid, pouting on her bed like a child near the eve of a dreaded anniversary, yet it was the only thing she could think to do. No one at work was able to make her feel much better, though they tried, putting Clara in such a rut that she did not know what to do… let alone what to do to make her go _forward_.

Her mobile soon rang and she let it go to voicemail. It rang again five minutes later and she picked it up—her father.

“Hey Dad,” she said, swiping the call through.

“ _How are you, my tiny tangerine? Holding up alright?_ ”

“I’m not at the bottom of a bottle this call, so I guess you can say that.” She thought back to a couple weeks ago when her father had caught her finishing up a _really good_ wine she had found and opened the day before, something that she knew she was not going to let down for a while. “How about you and Gran? Everything alright back home?”

“ _We’re all fine—Linda too, thanks for asking—though you know that’s not why I called_.” Clara put the phone on speaker and laid on her back to stare at the ceiling, really not feeling the conversation yet still wanting her father to speak his piece. “ _We both know it’ll be a year soon. Have you thought about when you’ll start to… well… work at moving on?_ ”

“It wasn’t that easy when Mum died either,” she sniped.

“ _That’s true, but I put myself out there because I knew she wouldn’t have liked it if I withered away and died soon after her_ ,” he retorted. “ _Danny was a good man, and I think he would have felt the same_.”

“I know, it’s just… it’s different. You still had to look after me.” A knot twisted in Clara’s gut, reminding her of the excitement she had experienced such a short time ago. “Danny and I wanted to have a kid or two, but he didn’t even get to leave me with that.”

“ _Then maybe that’s what you need: something to look after that you can adore, but doesn’t necessarily have the same commitment level as a child_ ,” Dave said. “ _What’s the term? Pet parent? That’s a thing these days for young people, yeah?_ ”

“Yeah, for people delusional enough to project human emotions onto animals so often that they forget what they’re dealing with is _not_ a human,” she frowned. “Just because someone _treats_ an animal like they would a human child doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate substitute. Plenty of my students have been under the delusion that the term ‘ _fur baby_ ’ doesn’t mean ‘ _a human baby with an unfortunately excessive hair growth condition_ ’ for years; trust me when I say I hope most of them stick to keeping pets and don’t graduate to adopting human children in the near future.”

“ _Still, having a pet would do you good. I mean, the fish are all gone, and even if they were there, they couldn’t interact with you, now could they?_ ”

“No…”

“ _Please give it a bit of thought, will you? For me?_ ” Silence. “ _For your mum?_ ”

“Fine,” Clara groaned. “I’ll think about it.”

“ _Thank you_.”

A few more minutes of small talk and the phone call ended, leaving Clara alone to her thoughts. She knew that there were plenty of men out there just waiting for the chance to go out with her and become what Danny had not lived long enough to be for her, though she wasn’t entirely sure how getting a pet would be the way to put herself out there enough to find them. Her father wasn’t always a font of good advice—he was married to _Linda_ for crying out loud—yet the part about coping with the loss of a spouse… there was something there that she knew was at least somewhat genuine.

Maybe, just maybe, it was worth a shot.

* * *

The following day, the noise inside the animal shelter was set at an unpleasant level of rancor that Clara wasn’t entire certain she, or the staff member that accompanied her to the back, deserved. She had talked to a couple coworkers during lunch, getting a recommendation to this particular one, and she had decided to take the plunge while her mind was still accepting of the idea. There were all sorts of cats and dogs arguing amongst another, or at least what she presumed to be arguing, with even a small tiger adding a deafening roar that shut all the other animals up for a moment.

“That one’s not up for adoption,” the staff member clarified with a wince. “Just got Timmy there last week out of a hoarder’s place and we’re waiting on a zoo that can take him.”

“I’m not certain I want a cat anyhow,” Clara said. She stared at the tiger, uncomfortable with the fact there was only chain-link fencing between it and her. “They’re a bit fussy, aren’t they?”

“They’re at least more prone to being fussy on average, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” the other woman said. “There are cats here who are just as affectionate as most dogs, and there are plenty of dog breeds that can give even the most fickle cats a run for their money.” She pointed at a particular dog, a fluffy white one with long, spindly legs, and shrugged. “Vera here is one of them—part poodle and lets you know it. I’d only really recommend her to someone with more experience and time on their hands. What did you say you did again?”

“I teach secondary school… literature…” Clara replied. She was barely paying the staff member any mind, instead glancing around the kennel at the various animals that she knew were up for adoption. Finally, one grey dog with perky ears way in the back corner caught her attention. “What about that one?”

“What, Basil? Little beast has been here longer than I have, which is saying something,” the staff member frowned. The dog heard its name and came shuffling towards the front of the cage, seemingly upset that it was even summoned. “He keeps on escaping from wherever he goes, always coming back here. We aren’t entirely sure what he is aside from Scots terrier; they aren’t often that grey or large, nor are their eyes blue, not if they’re purebred anyhow.”

Clara crouched down in front of the cage containing Basil and stared at him. “He’s kinda cute.”

“Honestly, it’s a grumpy old man that keeps on running away.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not looking for a bouncy, young puppy with too much energy for its own good,” Clara said. She stood and gave the staff member a grin. “I’ll take him.”

“If that’s what you want, ma’am, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” was the reply. The other woman waited until Clara stepped aside and opened the cage. She bent down to hook the leash onto Basil’s collar when the dog sneezed and walked right past her, calmly making its way towards the exit.

“Dogs don’t normally do that, do they?” Clara noted.

“They do when they’re Basil,” the staff member shrugged.

About half an hour of paperwork later and Clara was putting her new dog into the basket on the rear of her motorbike. It had seemed rather irritated by the fact he was made to sit in the back on wire, but she was eventually able to haul him up in there.

“C’mon you big baby,” she grunted. “It’s only until we get to the pet shop and I can find a nice cushion for you… maybe even a carrier…” She finally got him in and frowned. “Maybe a carrier isn’t a good idea—there’s no way you weigh fifty-six pounds like they say, even if you are a skinny thing. If I were to take a guess, I’d say the Airedale in there weighed less than you.” Basil laid down and allowed Clara to strap him down safely in the basket, giving her an indignant look.

Now that she thought about it… those eyes were a bit freaky.

After a quick popping in at the pet store and picking up some takeaway, Clara drove her bike back to her flat block and hauled all of her new things up to her floor. Basil obligingly took his leash with him in his mouth, watching the human carefully as she juggled her bag bringing everything into the cramped flat. The dog then skittered around his new home, leash now trailing along, seemingly inspecting the place to see if it was to his standards.

“Alright Basil, I assume you know the drill already,” Clara said as she opened a can of dog food and put it in the new dog dish. She placed the dish on the floor and waited for Basil to make his way over and begin eating. With him staying still, she was able to take off the worn leash and collar from the kennel and clipped a brand-new collar around his neck. It was a dark navy color, and it seemed to bring out the blue in his eyes even more. “That’s your dish, you sleep in your new basket, no laying on the furniture unless I’m there to unlatch your claws, and no peeing or taking a dump in the flat unless,” she grabbed the tray of scented training pads and waved it in front of him, “you go in this.”

Basil chewed his food and stared at Clara, seemingly unimpressed.

“Yeah, yeah, you and your attack-eyebrows probably don’t understand a word I’m saying,” she sighed.

Clara then went and began to eat her own dinner, glad that it was at least still hot enough to not microwave. She began to scroll through the news on her mobile as she ate, not paying her new flatmate any heed until she felt him head-butt her ankle. Looking down, she saw that Basil was staring up at her, tail (and rear) wagging as he stood next to his dish, which he had pushed over to her feet.

“I don’t know if curry’s a good thing to feed dogs…” she mused. Basil barked and then whimpered, nudging the bowl with his nose. “Alright, but don’t make this a common occurrence; we don’t need you getting heavier than you already are.” She took the bowl from the floor and brought it up to the table, spooning some of the rice and sauce in before setting it back down at the dog’s level. He then began to eat, chomping down voraciously on the treat as though it was one of its favorites.

Clara nodded; she was going to have to remember that.

* * *

“You seem happy today, Clara. What’s going on?”

Clara glanced up to see Adrian sitting across from her in the staff room, both of them on their lunch break. He looked concerned—well, he was always concerned about _something_ —and it was rare that the two of them were alone to talk freely.

“Oh, uh, nothing really,” she shrugged. “I’m just following some advice my dad gave me the other day, you know, and it involves rearranging my schedule. Let’s hope it’s for the better.”

“What advice is that, may I ask?”

“I got a dog.” She watched his eyebrow go up in confusion. “Dad said I might feel better about… you know… _things_ if I had a pet to take care of, so I went to the shelter and got an older dog to see how I do with it. If it goes well, I’ll be getting a new dog within a couple of years, and if not, then I’ll do my best to ride it out and then pitch its things in the charity shop once it goes.”

“Not a bad idea,” he nodded. “Say, you think that dog of yours can play striker in pub league? We still haven’t been able to find someone to fill those empty cleats.” They both smiled at that—she wasn’t the only one grieving, after all.

“It’s not a golden retriever backed by a human stunt team, that’s for sure,” she said. Clara picked up her mobile and pulled up a photo she had taken of her dog just the previous night. “That’s Basil; he’s a Scottish terrier mixed with… something… the kennel wasn’t entirely certain.”

“Maybe it’s part Kerry, or even schnauzer? It looks a bit like the dog my cousins had as kids that was a mix of those… just…” Adrian shuddered slightly. “It’s got some **_eyes_** on it, that’s for certain.”

“I don’t know if I’ve seen eyes like that on a dog before, but then again, I’ve never had cause to notice…”

“Certainly doesn’t make it look very friendly.”

“No, that’s the eyebrows,” Clara laughed. “Its own independent state of crossness, those things. Everything from Scotland has to be cross, you know, even dogs. I should’ve known better.”

“Celia’s husband’s from Edinburgh; maybe we can ask her how to get a Scot to behave,” Adrian joked.

“ _You_ were clearly never out during Celia’s hen night,” she replied.  There was then movement outside in the corridor, catching her attention. Mr. Coburn was attempting to get her attention… with a policewoman standing behind him. “Shit, what’s this about?” She went over to the door and opened it, very poorly trying to stay calm. “Yes…?”

“Are you Miss Clara Oswald?” the policewoman asked, not allowing Mr. Coburn to get a word in.

“Last time I checked—is something the matter?”

“I hate to inform you, but there’s been a reported break-in at your flat and we need your permission to search for any clues that could lead us to the suspect,” the policewoman said. “Entry doesn’t look forced and nothing appears to have been stolen, but we like to have the residents check themselves, just in case.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll be right there,” Clara said. She then rushed back to her seat and began to clean up her lunch, stuffing the leftovers in the fridge, as well as the marking she had been idly working on before Adrian struck up their conversation… Adrian! “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know if I’ll be able to help with taking Grade Sevens today...!”

“It’s fine; just go!” Adrian insisted. “Just make sure everything’s alright at your place.”

“We will also need you to restrain your dog while we look around, Miss,” the officer mentioned. “He seems to be tolerating us so far, but we don’t want to go too far and then have to call animal control.”

“I just got him too,” she muttered half-heartedly. This was the exact opposite of what she needed right then and there.

Once she got the remainder of her things from her classroom, Clara followed the policewoman out of the school and was at least able to ride her bike back home (giving a couple students a smile and wave on the way, just to confuse them). Once she got home, she found Basil sitting vigilant in front of her bedroom door, glaring at the officers that were wandering about in search of evidence.

“We have the resident,” the policewoman said, bringing Clara into the kitchen. There were a couple other officers there, all clearly her senior thanks to looking more civilian than her traffic cop getup.

“Thank you; I’ll take it from here,” the sergeant said. The new woman took a clipboard from an associate and flipped through the papers. “Clara Oswald?”

“Yes,” she affirmed curtly.

“It looks like at about seven after one in the afternoon, a Mrs. Singhdal from a couple floors down called to report what looked like a man in your kitchen window,” the sergeant explained. “Mrs. Singhdal then claims to have knocked, thinking that your father was in town for some sort of anniversary—I couldn’t get precisely what out of her—but became alarmed when she heard a strange voice instead. Do you live alone?”

“Aside from the dog? Yes.”

“Do you have a boyfriend, male friend or family member, male associate, or male contractor who would have the keys to, or general access to, your flat aside from the block staff?”

“Just my father, and he lives in Blackpool,” Clara confirmed. “Before you ask further, I _did_ have a boyfriend within the past year, but he also died within that amount of time—actually this weekend will mark a year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that; none of his friends had access to a key via him?”

“Most of his friends are either still in the military or were coworkers of ours—he would’ve known had he borrowed my key and then it vanished for a bit.”

The following couple of hours were a complete mess for Clara. She had to answer _way_ too many questions about what was going on in her life for comfort, as well as allow people she had never even met have full access to her flat. Not even _Basil_ had full access to her flat, as he was restricted to the kitchen, sitting room, and the central corridor that connected all the rooms together. In the end, the police found nothing of interest, leaving her flat with a tip of a couple hats and a direct phone number to call in case she did find something unusual in the coming days.

It was now well into evening, creeping towards midnight, as Clara sat blankly on her sofa. Basil laid curled up in her lap, allowing her to stroke his fur.

“I’m not very hungry, are you?” she asked. The dog snorted. “There is one thing that I know has been different lately—I’ve been talking a whole lot more since you got here. I wonder how healthy that is…”

Basil wriggled free from his spot underneath Clara’s arm and skittered over towards where his leash hung on a peg near the door. He put his paws up on the wall so he could stand and nudged it with his nose, giving as clear a signal as he could.

“I guess we can take a walk; might put me in the mood for some food while we’re out,” she agreed. Clara clipped Basil’s leash on his collar and shrugged herself into a coat. It might have been a bit nippy out the past few nights, but at least she was in _London_ , meaning that she was able to get decent food no matter what time of day or night it happened to be, no matter what she was in the mood to eat. As long as she had her mobile, she didn’t care what was going on.

Sure enough, the brisk night air was enough to get her blood going, and by the time the clock struck midnight, she was sitting in a small canteen having a sandwich while Basil had some plate scrapings that the manager was kind enough to set aside. Feeling invigorated, Clara knew that she was going to have to walk off some of her new energy before going to sleep, all of which was going to absolutely _destroy_ her regular sleeping pattern. She found a quiet street for her and Basil to stroll down on their way back home, taking solace in the still night.

Then, suddenly, Basil stopped walking. His already-perked ears twitched before he crouched down in a growl—something was wrong.

“What’s out there, boy?” Clara wondered. “Is it a squirrel? A badger from the park?” She sat on her calves and tried to see where Basil was growling. There wasn’t a person there, nor did it seem like there was another animal. “Are you sure there’s something there…?”

Basil growled again, except this time, he was met by a low hissing noise. A soft thud came from behind a nearby tree—they were not alone.

“Come on, Basil, let’s get out of here,” Clara said. She tugged at his leash, yet the dog stood his ground. His fur seemed to stand on end and fluff up as he let out a warning yip to their unwanted company. “Basil, come **_on_** , let’s get out… of… here…”

Slowly, the thing that fell from the tree came into sight, confusing Clara beyond words. It was a snake, sort of, except it had two stubby legs towards its front end and a face that appeared more cat than snake. Basil growled again, which resulted in the creature giving a feline-like his… all while sticking out its forked tongue.

Clara’s eyes went wide as she froze in horror. She didn’t know what she was looking at, let alone what to do about it. Basil firmly placed himself between the creature and her, growling fiercely as the being came closer.

In an instant, the creature attacked. Basil leapt into its path and the two began to fight. Clara panicked, not wanting to just sit there on the pavement like an idiot, and quickly began to look around for something to use as a weapon. A worn cricket bat with a cracked blade was sitting next to a rubbish bin on the other side of the street—perfect. She ran to get it, coming back to whack the creature as hard as she could to get it to stop coiling itself around her dog. It hissed at her, attempting to drive her off before getting hit in the face with the bat. Once it realized it was not dealing with only one attacker, the creature part-scampered-part-slithered away into the park across the street, nabbing a squirrely snack on its way.

“That was… weird…” Clara breathed. She then glanced down at Basil and gasped; he was hurt, bleeding from cuts to his side and face, and looked as though he could barely breathe based on his gasping breaths. “No, hey, I got you, gimme a mo’…” After sticking the broken bat underneath her arm, she picked up the dog and began to quickly walk towards her flat.

It felt like a million thoughts were racing through Clara’s head at once while she carried Basil back home. First and foremost, she _definitely_ wanted to call that direct number for the police sergeant, but she knew that she would likely be laughed onto a do-not-answer list the moment she began explaining what was going on. What was that thing? Why did it attack them? Where did it come from? She drove the thoughts from her mind as she got to her floor and opened the door to her flat—there was no time for that right now.

After making sure the door was shut and locked tightly behind them, Clara dropped the bat on the floor and went towards the kitchen. She pulled an old towel from the linen cupboard on her way and put that on the kitchen floor, laying the injured Basil atop it. The dog was whimpering in pain as she took the collar off him and the sight tore at her—the only reason he was hurt was because he had been defending her.

“Alright, let me at least get these disinfected, then we can see about wrapping them up,” she said. Clara rushed into the bathroom and found cotton balls and a bottle of surgical spirit, as well as some old, chunky menstrual pads her gran had bought (for what reason, she did not want to know) that she knew would take care of any bleeding from Basil’s side. She brought everything with her to the kitchen, putting it down next to Basil.

Then, as if things couldn’t become stranger, it did.

Basil’s fur, no, his _skin_ began to ripple, accompanying a sort of loud, sloshy sound. As the dog lay there, he began to grow in size, limbs stretching out and bones cracking as they rearranged themselves. His fur thinned and retreated until there was only some atop his head and a dusting on his extremely pale chest.

Before she knew it, Clara Oswald had a very naked, very human man lying on a towel and bleeding all over her kitchen floor.

“Uh, okay, hold still,” Clara said in a panic. She wet a wad of cotton with some surgical spirit and gently dabbed it atop one of the gashes on Basil’s side. He grunted in pain, curling his body up slightly.

“That hurts!” he snapped. “Just leave me alone!”

Okay Clara, your new dog just saved you from a snake-lizard-cat-thing and then morphed into a Scotsman on your kitchen floor. This couldn’t be _that weird_ , could it?

Yes. Yes it was very weird.

“I am going to safely assume that this explains why Mrs. Singhdal thought I was being robbed earlier today,” she said. “What the _hell_ are you?!”

“Hard to explain; just give me that.” Basil grabbed the menstrual pad and pressed the absorbent side to his ribcage in an attempt to stop his blood from spilling further.

“Okay, then what was that thing that did this to you?!”

“That’s even _harder_ to explain.”

“ _Are you_ going to explain anything?”

“Maybe if you let me stop bleeding out on your floor, then yes. Eventually.” He then began to sweat and soon passed out, laying completely still.

Clara stared at the man that, up until about ten or so minutes prior, had been her dog and contemplated what to do. She poked Basil in the shoulder and when she did not get a response, decided to continue with her previous plan of cleaning out the wounds. Working quickly, she was able to get him cleaned and patched up, finding an old pair of Danny’s basketball shorts on the bottom of her closet to cover his lower bits as she dragged him into the sitting room. She put him on the sofa—sitting up because it was the only way he could fit with his long legs—and stared.

What in the heck was going on?


	2. Chapter 2

Darkness.

“ _Yeah, sorry, but I’m going to need a personal day_.”

Silence.

“ _Thank you for understanding—I didn’t find anything yesterday, but you know it doesn’t hurt to be careful_.”

More silence.

“ _Yeah; see you tomorrow_.”

Basil opened his eyes and winced at the light coming in through the window. When did he get in the sitting room? Why was he covered in a blanket? Was he wearing shorts? He strained to sit up taller, only for a pair of hands to shove him back down.

…were there _menstrual pads_ taped to his sides…?

“Nuh-uh, not until I’m sure you’re okay to stand,” Clara ordered. She watched as he slumped back down and sulked. “Alright Basil, I’ve just taken the day off from work, mostly because I’m tired and still terrified beyond all reason, but I want you to go and tell me what last night was about.”

“Wasn’t much to it; a lindworm attacked, we drove it off, and I ended up passing out on the kitchen floor…”

“Shut up,” she demanded. She then took a deep breath, counted to ten, and exhaled. “A _what_ attacked us?”

“A lindworm—snake, but with a couple feet. Some people think of them as dragons, but those are honestly too smart to be in _Hackney_ of all places…”

“…and then what are _you_?” she asked, staring him down. “This time yesterday I was getting ready for work with my _dog_ in the flat, yet early this morning that very same dog turned into _you_. Care to explain that?”

“I thought that much was obvious: I’m a werewolf.”

Clara sat down on her coffee table as she attempted to process everything. “You mean to tell me that the Scottish terrier that I picked up from the shelter last weekend is a were _wolf_? Like the sort of werewolf that knows Dracula or the sort that’s in those silly teen romance books that normalize relationships that they shouldn’t?”

“Dogs were originally bred from wolves, therefore…” Basil motioned at himself. “It really is simple.”

“You have to excuse me for seeming a bit dense,” Clara frowned. “You _did_ sort of morph from dog to human in front of me last night, with no prior warning, after being attacked by a lineworm…”

“…lindworm…”

“…that _thing_ that I had to beat off you with a broken cricket bat.” She then paused, her mind needing to process a bit more. “What the hell did they slip me in my dinner last night?”

“It was just a turkey sandwich and chips; I would’ve smelled if something was off,” he said. Basil then sniffed the air before pouting again. “I can barely smell anything like this—the trade-off for better taste senses in this form, I suppose.”

“If you are part human, then why do you get caught and put in a rescue kennel?” she wondered. He shrugged noncommittally at that.

“Accident, but I don’t mind since I get to meet people that way, figure out who’s worth getting into a scrap with a lindworm for,” he replied. “The last person who attempted to ‘adopt’ me kept speaking to me like I was a baby—had a brain like uncooked lasagna, that one.”

“…and how do you become a dog again?”

“At this point I’d have to wait for the full moon, mostly,” he said. “That’s in what, two weeks? I think I can lay low until then.”

“If you need to wait for the full moon, then why had you transformed yesterday and scared my elderly neighbor to the point where she called the police? Does it provide you with extra energy or something?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he grinned. “See, it’s not just light from the sun that bounces off the moon, but radiation as well, and radiation from the sun unobstructed by an overpowering presence of light waves, combined with the fracturing done by the minerals on the moon’s surface, is what provides a werewolf with the specific energy needed to go from human to wolf after something as disastrous as, say, losing a lot of blood after a fight.”

“…which means normally you have enough energy to change at will?”

“Precisely.”

“…and the only thing the full moon does is help metabolize after injuries?”

“Yes and no, but for the basis of this conversation, that is the correct answer.”

“So there’s nothing else… no waiting ten years or silver bullets or wolfskins or anything like that?” He knitted his brows, one of the few things that seemed to really stay the same, and stared at her. “What? I’ve been teaching secondary school for five years—that’s _five_ Octobers of listening to tweens and teens carry on about edgy occult stuff this and faerie stories that and discussing their favorite Halloween creatures that never seem to change even if _why_ they’ve got favorites does. You tend to memorize a thing or two.”

Basil chuckled at that. “Well then, after the full moon, I will go and turn back into a dog and I will ‘run away’ and we don’t have to ever see one another again.”

“No, more like we are going to wait until the full moon, you will turn back into a dog, and I will return you to the animal shelter and get my money back, since the contract I signed says I have thirty days to change my mind,” Clara said. “I’m not taking the chance that this is a con.”

“No, that’s back in Greater Glasgow—an old packmate runs a shelter like that. The one you got me from is simply where I keep on finding myself.”

“Not convinced; you’re still going back there,” she said. She watched him shrug, then wince at the pain in his sides. Her voice softened slightly as she sat down next to him to peek at his wounds. “You have to be more careful. Those gashes still aren’t fully scabbed over yet.”

Basil sat silently as Clara carefully peeled away the tape that held the menstrual pad in place, exposing a deep gash that was half-scab, half oozing pus and blood. He watched her face as she examined it, noting that she didn’t look away, let alone flinch, until she took the rest of the pad off and folded it inward.

“Sit tight,” she requested.  He did so, watching as she disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a shoebox of things that she had apparently gathered while he was asleep. The first thing she did was put a bottle of water and two pills in his hand. “Take these—it’ll help.”

“Whatever you say, Boss,” he said. Basil took the pills and gnawed at his pointer finger while Clara began to work on his injuries. She worked quickly, taking care of his torso before it could sting too much, then turning her attention to his face. Wiping at his skin with some antiseptic, she tried to make certain that all the areas around the shallower cuts were clean, dry, and fully scabbed over before sticking plasters on them.

“Thank you, by the way,” she said. “I don’t want to know anything more about what that was that attacked us. We can never talk of it again.”

“You’re not worried that it might come back?”

“No… well _yes_ … but I still don’t want to think about it.”

“I hope you don’t have to,” he replied.

* * *

The rest of the day went relatively smoothly, as far as Clara was concerned. She was able to nap a bit, Basil was able to nap a _lot_ , and they both quietly shared a pizza that Clara had delivered before going to bed for the night. With Basil on the couch, Clara was able to go to sleep in her room with no visual reminder that he was even there. She tried to keep all thoughts of the werewolf in the flat as she drifted off to sleep, only for her dreams to let her hard work be for naught.

_In her dream she was alone against the lindworm. She glanced around to find that there was nothing—no forest, no city, not even a splintered cricket bat—waiting for her to fight back. The lindworm gave her a feline grin as it slithered about, preparing to leap forward and pounce. Her heart raced and she did not know what to do—if she did nothing, she would die._

_No, Clara Oswald was not going to die; she was one of the ones to take the Year Sevens to taekwondo, for goodness sake! She crouched down into a fighting stance and waited for the creature to strike._

_Except, as the lindworm began to launch itself into the air, a new player appeared on the scene: a large grey wolf leapt between them, catching the lindworm just past its legs. The wolf punctured scales and sinew, speckling its fur in a spray of green-black blood. Clara’s legs gave out as she watched the lindworm go limp, the wolf beat the corpse in its mouth against the floor, and eventually tossed it away in a bloody, gored mess. The wolf looked at her with a hungry stare, bloodlust in its pale eyes._

_It’s very human, light blue-grey eyes._

Clara was soaked in sweat as she woke up, breathing heavily in the dark bedroom. She cringed as she realized that even the sheets were wet with sweat, meaning that she was going to at last have to change them, maybe even wash them depending on if she remembered to wash her other set, before she could go back to sleep. A check of the clock—five before six—and she decided to simply get up for the day instead. The flat was silent, so at least she knew that she could have some restful hours of marking papers before needing to get ready for work.

She was nearly at the kitchen before she stopped and turned, continuing through her flat to reach the sitting room. Clara saw Basil laying precisely where she left him, sleeping soundly on the couch, and couldn’t help but shudder. Yes, he looked fairly harmless as he laid there (in fact, he was nearly cute if she thought about it), but there was little that could keep her mind off the wolf in the dream.

Could he turn into that wolf? Would he recognize her if he did so? Was it dangerous to keep him around? Why _that_ dream specifically? She hoped it was merely her imagination getting the best of her and went back into the kitchen, where not only her marking was waiting for her, but everything to make a decent cuppa as well.

An hour passed and Clara packed her things and prepared to go to work. She left after writing a note to the still-sleeping Basil as to why she was not around, nearly dodged Mrs. Singhdal in the lobby ( _yes, there’s nothing wrong, thank you for calling; just please know I have a family friend in the flat as of yesterday and don’t call the police on **him**_ ), and finally was able to take solace in the comforting routine that was her commute.

Her students were all atwitter as she walked into Coal Hill that morning, as she expected, wondering why she had gone and vanished for a day after being lead out of the building by a police officer. Clara simply smiled sweetly and explained there was a problem at her flat block—which was definitely not a lie—and that now she was ready to get back to suffering through their lack of completed coursework and sassy, backhanded answers to her lectures. It was precisely what the students needed to laugh and get back to their work.

Adrian, on the other hand…

“Are you doing alright, Clara?” he wondered as he poked his head into her classroom. It was their prep periods, meaning that there were no children, pubescent or otherwise, around to listen in on their conversation.

“Oh yes, thank you,” she replied. She took a bite of her sandwich and crumpled up the paper she was writing on. “Now if only I can get a hold of how I want to go into the Year Nines’ Orwell section next month. Do I begin with emphasizing the parallels to modern day politics or do I let them bring it up? Do I need to ask Kendra for a quick summary on early Soviet history to give as support material or not? I just don’t want those blank looks from last year…”

“Relax—you’ll be fine,” he assured her. Adrian leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “How’s the flat? Everything there?”

“Yeah. Whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find.”

“…and Basil?”

“Safe; he kept the police out of my bedroom until I got there, so at least I know he’s a decent guard dog in _that_ respect.” Clara contemplated going further, ultimately deciding it could possibly be a good thing. “I’ve got someone staying with me in the meantime; he’s a family friend, and is able to be there when I’m not, just in case whomever it was that decided to rummage through my place returns.”

“A night-shift man then?”

“No, just a ‘freelancer’, though I’ll be damned if I know what he actually does,” she shrugged. “Best part? Now I’ve got two Basils in the flat.”

Adrian laughed, immediately finding the hilarity in his coworker’s half-lie. “Please tell me it is a complete coincidence.”

“I doubt I’d ever want to name something after this Basil, trust me.”  Yes, she was not entirely telling Adrian the truth, but at the same time, she didn’t exactly want to make him think that she was going home to an empty flat where a burglar who had already gotten in once before could be waiting for her to return. Though Basil was now around as a human instead of a dog, the facts that he hadn’t robbed her nor let her get attacked by the lindworm made it so that she was more comfortable with the idea of him being there than she probably should have been. “Any luck on finding that striker? You don’t have long until your season starts, do you?”

The two teachers made small talk for a while before parting for the remainder of the day. Their time at work was punctuated by the predictabilities of their students, so thoroughly obvious that even the teens and tweens who skewed towards outrageousness became predictable in their lack of predictability.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news Miss Woods, but Mr. Davies and I are **_not_** dating. Please find some other pair of friends to match-make… _after_ giving me three instances of why ‘ _Oroonoko_ ’ is an important step in English literature, as well as three instances where it fails our modern standards. You didn’t insist on testing into the advanced class for nothing.”

With the last bell rung, students cleared of the building, and peace once again permeating the corridors of Coal Hill, Clara was finally free from her responsibilities. She cleaned up her stuff and went home, making sure to stop along the way to get some things for dinner that did not involve pizza or any other form of takeaway. Bringing everything up to the flat herself, she found that Basil met her at the door, some of the plasters having fallen off his face and almost jumping at the sight of her.

“Please tell me there’s decent food in there,” he implored, eyeing her shopping. “It’s been ages since you left.”

“I was at work for my usual amount of time, relax,” she half-smirked. He really was, in a lot of ways, still connected to his canine self. “Hope you like hotpot, because that’s what we’re having tomorrow. I have to administer three sets of exams and I won’t feel much like any sort of cooking at all.”

“What about tonight?”

“First off, I want an answer out of you.” She put on a more serious air, keeping the shopping out of his reach. “What do you _do_ when you’re not a dog?”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked. “I do human things.”

“I mean, how do you earn money? Pay bills? Occupy your time?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” he shrugged, “I’m a dean of faculty at St. Luke’s University in Bristol.”

 ** _That_** caught Clara completely off-guard. “Dean of faculty? You mean to tell me that you are, in your human form, in charge of an entire section of a university’s programs?”

“Close, but I’ll give it to you,” he nodded. Seeing that his hostess was not convinced, he pointed at the mobile she had sticking out of her purse. “Look me up if you need to; Basil J. Smith; it’s all there.”

Clara carefully pulled her mobile out and began to search for any trace of Basil’s supposed career of choice. She could vaguely recall a St. Luke’s in Bristol as a place where past students attended, yet it wasn’t very popular considering none of their staff came to recruit as many others did. Sure enough, no more than five minutes of searching the school’s website had passed before she was looking at what was undoubtedly a series of photographs of the man standing in front of her.

“…what _don’t_ you teach?” she asked, glancing at his credentials.

“What _don’t_ they offer?”

“…and why is it that you are able to pop off whenever you want, for however long you want? Shouldn’t you be _at St. Luke’s_ right now?”

“My assistant has it under control; not like he doesn’t when I’m there either.” The last few words were muttered under his breath, with only the sort of ire that can be produced by someone with an overbearing coworker waiting for their return. “Besides, the chancellor wants me to take at least this term off. You’d see it if you scrolled a bit further.” She did, seeing precisely what he had just told her: _currently on holiday_.

“Interesting…” she mused aloud, though it was mostly to herself.

“Uh, Clara…?”

“Yes?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“We’re having a fresh, green salad tonight; putting some veg in you will do that Scots pallor of yours some good, and offset tomorrow’s hotpot.”

As Basil began his whiny protest (“I’m a _predator_ , Clara! I eat greens when I’m ill!”), Clara continued to quickly concoct a plan for the following day. She was going to make certain that she got to the bottom of all of this, and the only way to do that was to talk to the source.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oroonoko is the titular character in a novel by Aphra Behn, a playwright active during the British Restoration era. She was, amongst other things, the one of the first women known to make her living by writing, an important figure in the development of the English novel, a spy for Charles II, and someone able to write about feminism, love, and sexuality more frankly than any woman had really been allowed to before. Like Clara mentioned, there are some issues around her and her works for a modern audience, which is expected for an individual who died in 1689, so do take care if you look more into her and her works.


	3. Chapter 3

Clara stared at her mobile, wondering what was taking so long. She had sent an email to what was supposed to be Basil's office first thing in the morning—nearly the moment she had walked into work—hoping she'd get an answer from someone. All she wanted was a confirmation that she had the correct man in her possession, that there was nothing to worry about, and that she wasn't to worry about the fact she left for work while he was disassembling her toaster oven. Instead, it was her advanced class, towards the end of the day, and she hadn't heard a single thing of any consequence.

At least, she knew, that she would be able to go home and not have to worry about dinner. Not about to let an unknown talent cook for her, she had thrown all the hotpot ingredients into a slow-cooker before leaving the flat that morning. Thanks to the confusion that was the past week, she was glad to be able to have something she could rely on, and it sure as heck wasn't going to involve doing more work for herself after a long day of repeating the same answers to the same questions (which was plenty more tiring than it seemed).

The final bell sounded and the children were released—still nothing.

Clara mounted her motorbike and set off for home—no buzzing in her pocket.

Walking from the underground carpark to her flat block didn't even yield anything of note… not even one of her older, nosier neighbors attempting to figure out who it was she had in her flat with her. It normally wouldn't've bothered her, but given the situation, Clara was both relieved and terrified. She was nearly about to put the key in the door when she heard a voice inside her flat… a very _unfamiliar voice_ that was definitely **_not_** Basil.

"I'll murder him," she hissed. Clara stormed into her flat and immediately saw who the offender was: a man with all the appearance of a boiled egg in a woolen waistcoat scolding Basil with a voice shriller than her stepmum's. It was a bit surreal seeing the stranger in her sitting room, stunning her into speechlessness for a moment.

"You are going to get yourself killed one of these days with this tomfoolery," the boiled egg warned. Basil seemed to not be paying him much attention, instead watching telly while munching on some crisps. "What will happen when you're so injured that you _die_?"

"Nardole, don't think that way…"

"The university _pays me_ to think that way!" If the egg—or Nardole, Clara supposed—was able to tear at hair, he would have. "Every time you get a proper holiday you go and strip down to your nothings and gallivant across the England, getting into scrapes that are a bit more than just that. What caused those scratches, hmm? Those gashes on your side?"

"He was protecting _me_ ," Clara said, finally recovering herself as she put her bag down. "I thought he was a dog at the time, so excuse me if I didn't rush him straight to a hospital." Nardole jumped fussily at the sound of her voice, staring at her as though she was an alien from outer space.

"Doctor? Who's this?"

" _My name_ is Clara Oswald; I own this flat," she replied. If the egg was in her presence, he was going to direct questions about her _to her_. "The question is: who are _you_ and why are you here?"

"Severo Nardolé," the egg said with a curt nod.

" _Nar-do-lay_? Basil just said…"

"You must forgive him; Nardole doesn't know a thing about anything, other than how to get on my nerves," Basil interrupted. "He's just a bald, impotent satyr anyhow…"

" _Faun_ ," Nardole corrected. "You know perfectly well I am a faun."

"…and you know perfectly well that I don't have any time for your rules right now, not while I'm on holiday."

Nardole scowled and tottered off towards the kitchen, muttering as he went. Soon as he was out of earshot, Clara tapped the side of Basil's head with her palm and hissed at him, turning off the television in the process.

"What are you doing letting someone into my flat without me knowing?!"

"It's just _Nardole_ … it's not like he's capable of anything of merit, poor or otherwise."

"That doesn't mean you just let him in here uninvited!"

"…but he _was_ invited!"

"By whom?!"

"You!" He scoffed as she stared at him, her eyes going wide. "Don't do that; inflate your eyes when you're not to blame for this. You were the one who told him where I was!"

"…so attempting to notify your office of your general whereabouts and physical condition brought him here?"

"Yeah, thanks; now he'll never leave," Basil griped. Clara was just about to scold him again when Nardole poked his head out of the kitchen, holding a half-assembled kettle.

"If this is the state of this place, then I should have been called sooner," he said before disappearing again. Clara glared at Basil, who simply held up his hands in defense.

"It was an old one I found in the cupboard, honest," he claimed.

"You owe me a new kettle," she frowned. It was then that Clara noticed something: the smell that she had expected to be all throughout her home, _wasn't_. "Basil? What happened to the hotpot?"

The werewolf stopped munching mid-crunch and his face went paler than ever. He muttered something under his breath as he put down the chips and scrambled to stand and rush towards the kitchen. When he and Clara both went into the kitchen, they found that the slow-cooker was unplugged and empty, all while Nardole was rummaging about in his effort to make tea.

"Nardole, how long have you been here?" Clara asked.

"A few hours," he replied.

"…and _what_ have you done to my _dinner_ in the meantime?" She pointed towards the slow-cooker, at which he gave a cursory glance.

"It was goat—you can't expect me to eat goat. Why do you even eat goat, anyway?"

"I eat it because I like it, and I like it because I tried some from a cart vendor a couple years ago, and I was going to make it for tonight because I had no plan on having a _faun_ over for dinner!"

"Ignorance does not excuse rudeness."

Without another word, Clara lunged forward, grabbed Nardole by his shirt collar, and yanked hard enough for his top button to pop off. She pulled him through the flat to the door, half-throwing him out into the corridor.

"If I ever see your face again, you better _pray_ that I see you are on your best behavior, or else it will be _your_ hindquarters in that slow-cooker!" she snapped. She then slammed the door shut, nearly stomping her way towards Basil. "Never, _ever_ let someone into this flat who is neither my father nor the police if I am not home, is that understood?!"

"Perfectly—I didn't even want to let him in, but before I knew it, he was in here and being… well… Nardole."

"Then make a better effort next time," Clara said. She then stopped at the sound of her stomach squelching in agony. "Crap… I don't have dinner. That man bloody **_ruined_** my dinner…"

"Go sit down, Clara," Basil said. When she gave him a confused look, he sighed and scratched his head through his fluffy greying hair. "Go sit down or take a nap or have a soak or whatever it is that you do to relax; I'll take care of dinner tonight."

"You will…?"

"Yes—the one good thing about Nardole is that he brought a bunch of my things with him when he came, so now I'm slightly less dependent on you for everything," he explained. Clara looked in the direction Basil was pointing in and saw a carryall sitting behind the couch. "You've done such a great job taking care of me that now I want to take care of you for a bit."

"Are you sure you're up to it?" she asked. "It hasn't been that long since you were hurt."

"Go, go," he insisted, gently pushing her towards her bedroom.

Once Clara was in he closed the door so that she was alone and free to do as she wished. It was a bit confusing, that much was for certain, but she took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and decided that yes, it was better if she took a nap. She was tired from the kids' exams earlier in the day, making her too weary for a book or a bath. It felt as though no sooner had she laid atop her comforter, her mobile rang, pulling her from sleep.

"Hello…?"

" _Hey_." It was her dad. " _How are things? I didn't wake you up, did I?_ "

"Yeah, but I needed to get up anyhow to eat something and start marking," she said. Clara sat up and glanced towards the clock on her dresser: it had been over two hours since she went to bed.

" _Exams?_ "

"Yeah; they still beat my arse. It's not fair to be exhausted by exams as a teacher… not before you start marking them."

" _It's not, but that doesn't mean you should let that get you down_." There was a slight pause, in which Dave cleared his throat. " _I was just calling to see if you wanted me to come down tomorrow—my boss said that he can write it off as a work trip if you need someone to stay with you for a bit_."

"Thank Mr. Marrow for me, but I'll be fine," she replied. "I have… a friend staying over for a bit. A work friend."

" _It's not Adrian, is it? Please tell me it's Adrian._ "

" ** _No_** , it's not Adrian—you're worse than my students, Dad."

" _I was just wondering! It's not like either of us are getting any younger, and I_ _ **do**_ _want to make sure you're happy. Oh, did you give any more thought into getting a pet? I heard that the Jensens the street over have kittens and are only charging for the costs of shots and getting the things fixed_ …"

Uh-huh, yeah, a subject change was not going to work this time. Clara filed her father's insistence on her settling down with someone before the age of forty away for another day and humored him for the time being.

"Funny you should mention that; I was actually more thinking about a dog—one that does well in flats and doesn't need much attention."

" _I was under the impression that you were more of a cat person_."

"I don't want something that can climb on shelves higher than me when it misbehaves."

" _You do have a point there_." Clara could almost hear her dad nodding on the other end, which made her chuckle. " _Are there dogs that aren't that much work? The one Mum and I had before you were born was a handful_ …"

"I'm considering an older one from a shelter, one that doesn't have many years left," she said. Clara glanced towards her bedroom door and hoped that Basil didn't come barging in. "That way it can get out of the shelter and I don't have as long of a commitment if I end up not liking it."

" _That's smart of you. If you like it, do you think you'd get a puppy?_ "

"Maybe, if there's any available drop-outs from the service-dog company that Coal Hill works with. I wouldn't have the time to train a puppy myself, but one of the secretaries got a German shepherd from there a couple years ago and you wouldn't believe how calm it is for one that didn't make it all the way through."

" _Alright, Clara, I'm sorry but I'm getting The Stare—we're overdue to meet up with people_ ," Dave said dully. Clara could imagine Linda standing there, arms folded and scowl souring her already unpleasant face, as she had seen so many times before, and it was enough to want to keep her father on the line for longer. _"Mind if I call you back on Saturday?_ "

"Sunday—I'll be a bloody wreck on Saturday and it's better off you not listen to that."

" _That's fair_."

The two bid one another goodbye and Clara ended the call, putting the mobile back down on the bed. She changed into fluffy pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt, getting as comfortable as possible before shuffling out of her bedroom. There was a simply _sinful_ smell coming from her kitchen; as she followed it, muffled music could be heard as well. She looked through the doorway and saw Basil standing at the stovetop, humming along to the rock song he had playing off a mobile. Now dressed in pajama bottoms and a few layers of t-shirts and a hooded sweatshirt, he seemed to expertly watch over this pan and that, catching the fact he was no longer along out of the corner of his eye.

"Take a seat, Clara," he said. "You're just in time."

"What did you make…?" She looked at the stove and knew it wasn't simply takeaway put into pans to make it seem as though he properly cooked—there was veg and potatoes and gravy, though no hint of anything else.

"I've got a couple pies in the oven."

"Pies…? Since when did I have the stuff to make pies?"

"Since I went through your freezer and deemed it so," he replied. "You're ruining it—come on and sit down."

"Fine," she half-laughed. Clara sat and waited, watching Basil as he moved about her kitchen with disturbing ease. Before long, she had a tasty-looking pie sitting in front of her, with some mash and steamed veg on the side, and top of said pie drowning in gravy. A glass of wine for each of them and Basil sat down as well, beaming proudly at his handiwork.

"It's been a while since I had the opportunity to cook for someone new, let alone other than myself," he admitted. "Go on; there's plenty of carbs there and you look like you're in need of them."

"Why would I be in need of carbs?"

"Three exams, coming home to find _Nardole_ in your flat of all things, and I heard the ringtone you set aside for your dad before you came in here. I'm sure it ended thanks to someone named ' _Linda_ ', as it did the couple times you had him on speaker when I was a dog, and I am under the impression that although he cares more than most fathers, you are definitely glad she is not your mother."

"Thanks for reminding me that you were spying on me for nearly a week under false pretenses," she said. Clara took a bite of pie and her eyebrows rose at how good it tasted. "Wow… you're not bad at all."

"No problem—and don't worry, I would have escaped already if you were the type to wander around the flat without clothes. Why do you think I never went in your room? Or followed you into the bathroom? Plenty of other animals do that to their owners; you didn't wonder about me?"

"I honestly thought you were too old and lazy."

"Hey! Fifty-six is not that old!"

"Almost as old as my dad, grey hair, and tell me the last time a dog lived to be that long in human years."

Basil simply stuffed more food in his mouth in order to not answer. With his lack of jabbering, Clara was able to eat her dinner in peace, nearly glad that a faun had taken over her dinner long enough to ruin her original plans.

* * *

It was finally Saturday.

No work, no visitors, no nothing. Clara already planned on staying indoors and not leaving the place the entire day. It wasn't the most constructive way to spend The Anniversary, yeah, but she knew that she needed at least one commemoration to be spent in such a way, so it might as well be the first of them. The only thing on the agenda was plenty of telly and slowly consuming the two pizzas that Clara had delivered for lunch. With Basil sitting on one end of the couch and Clara curled up on the other, they passed a decent chunk of time in relative silence—only breaking it by a laugh here or a snark-filled comment there—avoiding the reason why the day had been so low-key to start.

It was late in the evening by the time Clara went to the bathroom, having not committed to much movement or fluid intake since her breakfast that morning. When she returned to the couch, she saw her mobile on the table blinking with a new message. A quick look—her dad.

' _I was looking through pictures to archive and found this. You both look so great_.'

Clara swiped through and went to her messaging system to look at what the picture was. She tried to brace herself, knowing it was likely a picture of her and Danny, yet still broke into tears as she saw it. There was the two of them, surrounded by students during the school fête, everyone a giant mess of mud and grass-stains from the obstacle course they coordinated. She put the hand not holding her mobile over her mouth and let hot tears run down her cheek. That day had been well before he had proposed, yet she still remembered it was the first day he ever told her that he loved her. Danny had not been a man that threw such a phrase around idly; when he whispered it in her ear while picking stray blades of grass and clumps of dirt out of her hair, he _meant it_.

"What happened to you?" Basil wondered. Clara glanced over and saw that he was standing nearby with a tub of cottage cheese and a spoon in-hand. He sat down next to her and put his things on the table so that he could pay the image on the phone his full attention. "I haven't seen you look like this before."

"I'm usually not covered in mud."

"No, I mean, not like _this_." He motioned towards the picture, then at her. "Even when you smile now you're sad—the Clara in this photo is far from it."

"That was a very big day for Danny and me, believe it or not," she replied shakily. She wiped the tears on her face off with her arm, glad that she wasn't wearing any makeup that day. "He told me he was in love with me."

It took a couple moments, but Basil let out a small chuckle and shook his head. "You don't seem that old-fashioned—it's fine to be that way, but it simply doesn't seem very you."

"He was, and I was fine with it, but…" She began to trail off, which made her bob her head in uncertainty. "It's just not fair now that he's gone… it's too boring, which is a terrible thing to say about someone's death, but I kind of figured that if he didn't die an old man that he would doing something insanely brave or adventurous… he didn't deserve what he got."

"I've lost someone too, you know," he said. He held her hand, his fingers completely enveloping her own, and squeezed gently. "Tell me about it."

Clara hesitated, memories churning in her stomach. "He was hit by traffic. Survives three bloody tours and he goes as the casualty of an idiot being behind the wheel after a bad trip." She picked at her fingers, staring at the nothingness in front of her as she did so. "We were work mates first, going out in the main group of teachers around our age, but after a while… something clicked and we began doing things just the two of us, and before either of us knew it, he was on one knee and I was saying yes and then…" She couldn't continue, instead closing her eyes and leaning back into the couch.

"That sounds almost like River," Basil said. Clara looked at him only to see that he too was lost in a reverie. "My, erm, late wife was an archaeology professor with St. Luke's. She went on the craziest trips—I was even there for some of them—and she died due to an electrical fault in the school library. It was arcing out during a storm and she was hit while evacuating students… to go from observing and collecting data at sites in dangerous, out-of-the-way places to a _library_ … it came as a surprise to say the least."

"You were married?"

"Yeah; she's been gone for more than a few years now, but that doesn't mean I don't miss her," he stated. "Even if you're lucky enough to find someone new, you won't stop missing Danny, and that's normal. The only thing now is that you're living for two, so make the best of it. That's how I see it anyhow."

Taking the information all in, it really hit Clara that Basil wasn't simply some strange being without a life of his own. The airs he put on, he was a _werewolf_ for crying out loud, was nothing more than an extra layer to him as a person. She shifted on the cushion before speaking again.

"Was River a werewolf as well?"

"She was, yes. She was made a werewolf as a child from a bite." He attempted to drop the topic, yet Clara silently urged him on. "My family is just cursed—some of us inherit it, some don't, though I did."

"Do you have any other family?"

"Not really… the closest person I've got to family is Bill, my graduate assistant, and it's more that she needs an adult in her life that cares than anything. I'm like a weird grandfather or odd uncle to her and she's just another student in the long chain of them. It's not like she isn't important to me, but…"

"…she's still a student," she finished. "I think we understand one another on that front better than we previously thought." She leaned over, resting her head on his arm, and exhaled heavily. "Is Bill human?"

"Yes and no—she was a baby when she was snatched by the elves and replaced with a changeling. When her human mother died, she was switched back, but that short time she spent with the elves changed her."

"Does this mean that St. Luke's is the magic university? Like the uni version of Hogwarts?"

"Not really; we preternatural folks tend to naturally gravitate towards one another. Bill would be well within in her rights to leave me and the rest of the supernatural world behind to attempt to find her own way amongst the humans that barely understand the wonders she's seen, yet she's too attracted to water nymphs to bring herself to do so."

"…at least she's consistent…?"

"She's something alright. Bill's a good kid and I want her to do well. Putting all my effort into students like her… it makes things easier, in a way."

"It does, doesn't it?" Clara smiled to herself as Basil let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders. The half hug he gave her was comforting, and she breathed slowly as she leaned into it, calming into a restful sleep.

When she woke up she was in her bed, tucked away with no sign of Basil having even entering her room. She laid back down and easily went back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

It was raining— _storming_ , even—the night of the full moon. A large thunderstorm was covering the entire British Isles, which only made Clara irritated more than anything. She even went to bed irritated, which was something she made a conscious effort to not do under normal circumstances. These were circumstances far from normal, which made her feel justified in the break from her routine. Basil, however, seemed significantly less perturbed.

“At least the moon is out during the night right now,” he said from his spot by the window the following morning.  The storm from the night before had calmed to a slight mist, making it look more foggy than anything outside. “It’s not like it’s always out; when it’s not full, you can see it nearly whenev—” He was cut off by Clara throwing a cushion towards his face as he turned to face her.

“Yeah, except _now what_ are we going to do?” she sniped. “I feel bad that you got hurt protecting me, but at the same time, you need to leave at _some point_.”

“Traveling’s too risky for me at the moment without some sort of guard; there are beings out there that would love a shot at me in a weakened state,” he scowled.

“Then what was the lindworm’s excuse?”

“Lindworms aren’t known for their overabundance of intellect, Clara,” Basil replied. “If I had more time before the attack, I could have used a form that was more adept at fighting than I was working with, but that was out of our hands.”

“I know you’re talking, but all I hear is that you’re finding more reasons to couch-surf on your work holiday,” she said.

“You wound me.”

“I speak the truth.”

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Basil retreated to the guest bathroom, utilizing what Clara referred to as “Number Three”. Nearly all the men she had ever known (and some women; she wasn’t fully immune herself), were prone to misuse the privacy bathroom breaks provided to watch internet videos, or check email, or just read, with no other traditional bathroom activities being done in the meantime. It was how her father avoided her stepmother when she was being confrontational and menopausal, it was how students tried to avoid being in class too much for their liking, and it was now how Basil was attempting to avoid her before she went to work. She decided to brush it off and put together her lunch instead—there was no use in letting him derail her morning.

A noise broke the soft silence of Clara milling about in the kitchen—her mobile—and she went to pick it up. The photo on the screen was two mud-caked men in football kits, though there was now only one who would have been capable of calling, and he _never_ called.

“Adrian? What’s wrong?” she asked as she answered.

“ _I hate to call you this early, Clara_ ,” Adrian apologized, “ _but you said you have a family friend staying with you right now, yeah?_ ”

“Yeah…”

“… _and that he’s a freelancer who may or may not have a job at the moment?_ ”

“What are you getting at?”

“ _Long story short: I walked into the office not five minutes ago to find out that Mr. Atif is taking a leave of absence. His father fell at the family home in Egypt last night. Everything’s alright, but he wants to take the rest of term off so that he can not only take care of them, but also the paperwork necessary to move them here so he and Mrs. Atif can watch over them better_ …”

“…and your mind went immediately to my flat-guest.”

“ _If you’re willing to vouch for him, I’ve been told he can start immediately. If not, then we’ll have to put out an advertisement for a temp immediately, and you know how well that went last time_ …”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Clara shuddered. The string of temps they had suffered through before Mr. Atif’s tenure was a disastrous mix of lazy, slapdash, and downright insane, which made the staff (and some students) applaud the kindly, stable current caretaker’s entry all the more. “I’ll get him down there—he might be a bit over-qualified, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“ _No, it doesn’t; I’ll tell Mr. Coburn_.”

“Alright, thanks.” Clara ended the call and went towards the guest bathroom, knocking on the door. Basil opened it almost immediately, fully clothed and with his mobile in-hand. Yup… a Number Three.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Coal Hill’s in need of some emergency help and I was told that if you came in with me that you’d be put to work immediately.”

“As what? Physics teacher? Music director? Art instructor?”

“Caretaker.”

“No; out of the question.”

“ _Basil_ …”

“I’m not going undercover or anything…”

“…but you _did_ just say that it’s dangerous for you to be out without supervision, and this would enable you to get out of the flat…”

Basil scoffed at that. “You’re too short, your face is too round, you’re too bossy, you know very little about the preternatural world…”

“Fake it ‘til you make it, and if not, our P.E. instructor teaches Muay Thai on weekends,” she declared. “Now get ready; you’re going to work with me.”

“I already _have_ a job, remember?”

“…and considering we’re not in Bristol right this moment, I can assume that you need the change of scenery. Hurry up or I’ll phone the faun-man to come pick you up, and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

Basil pouted as he complied, as he did not want to see Nardole just yet after just getting rid of him again. Besides, the fact of the matter was that, even if the threat was empty, irritating his hostess any further would result in a possible lack of treats being brought back to the flat, and that was something that he had rather been looking forward to as of late. He followed Clara out the door and down to her motorbike, hopping on the back and awkwardly attempting to find a place to put his hands before she zoomed off onto the street.

A ride through the mist and fog turned into a ride in the rain, and by the time they arrived at Coal Hill, it was thundering again. Clara and Basil ran into the school, currently devoid of students, with the latter soaked and the former only nominally wet thanks to her raincoat.

“No fair, Clara; I can’t just shake this off like normal,” Basil growled. He attempted to shake his body dry, yet could only really get water off his hair. “This is highly inefficient.”

“This is likely preparing you to be better about which coat you wear in the future,” Clara chuckled. She led the sopping wet Basil throughout the school, bringing him directly to the main office where Adrian and Mr. Coburn were still chatting away. “Morning! I brought the substitute caretaker, as promised.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Mr. Coburn exhaled. He reached his arm out to shake Basil’s hand, yet blinked in surprise as he gave the newcomer a decent look. “Do I know you?”

“You might’ve sent some students my way; normally I lecture in St. Luke’s, Bristol,” Basil replied. “Clara said you needed a favor, so here I am.”

“If you normally are in Bristol, then why are you staying at Miss Oswald’s?” Adrian wondered. A brief silence gripped the four, during which Clara began to panic.

“Basil is an old friend and agreed to stay with me for a while after my flat was broken into, because it was getting to me that someone else was in there,” she blurted out. “Normally I wouldn’t’ve bothered him, but he was in the area and—”

“I’m actually on holiday from St. Luke’s,” Basil said. “Change of pace and all that.”

“Then I’m honored that you decided to spend some of your holiday here with us, and far from what your usual working capacity is,” Mr. Coburn said. He led Basil away, giving Adrian and Clara room to talk.

“ _He’s_ the one you’ve got over at your place?” he wondered. She nodded, which only made him frown. “You made it sound like he was some daft uncle or something, and I met all your daft uncles last year. Is everything alright?”

“Yeah; he’s generally harmless towards other human beings,” she replied. “Irritable? Yes. A _problem_? Not that I can tell. The only thing is that he’s taken apart my toaster about half a dozen times by now and I need to be able to leave the flat without worrying for my kitchen appliances.”

“That’s good, at least.” He stared in the direction Mr. Coburn had brought Basil, his eyes narrowing slightly. “There’s something about him though… I don’t know how long you’ve known him or how you met, but please be careful.”

“He and I met at one of those seminars you never seem to get picked to attend,” she lied. “Red flags going up?”

“Yeah, though I can’t place why. Guess it’s one of those things that I hope is a false alarm.” Another teacher then came into the office to check her pigeon-hole for messages, causing him to drop his voice to just barely a whisper. “Be careful, yeah? We can’t go losing you too.”

“Thanks,” Clara nodded. She watched as Adrian turned on his heel and left, deciding to use the extra time she now had at work to put together a couple more plans ahead. A few steps and she was at her own pigeon-hole, looking over her mail, seeing if there was anything good.

“You on to Adrian now?” the other teacher asked. Clara glanced over and saw an incredulous look across her coworker’s face.

“No…? He and I are friends, is all; you’d be part of the group if you’d come out after work on Fridays to the pub every now and then.”

“I’d rather not…”

“Your loss then,” Clara shrugged. The other teacher seemed unfazed by that, however.

“Did you see the new dish that Mr. Coburn’s showing around?” she asked. “A bit on the older end for me, but still a nice addition to the scenery. I wonder who has _him_ as a substitute.”

“Mr. Atif has to take a leave of absence to help out his parents,” Clara explained. She didn’t want to get into too much, being that she didn’t know how the particular coworker would handle Basil staying on her couch. “His replacement should only be temporary; nothing at all like the Year of the Seven Caretakers.”

“That was _bloody_ awful; don’t remind me,” the other teacher groaned. Clara smiled inwardly as she was inundated with griping about the year none of the rest of staff wanted to relive. That way, she was able to politely excuse herself after a few moments and went back to her classroom, ready to wade her way through short essays pretending to be about _Animal Farm_ and her upcoming lectures on roman à clef novels.

What she noticed, however, was that she couldn’t get her mind off of Basil. After having him shut up in her flat for the past two or so weeks, there was something in her that couldn’t help but worry about him now that they were both out and about, with him potentially out in the open for any other weird creature to attack. Had someone asked her a month prior if there were such things as werewolves, she would have found the nearest Hammer Horror anthology and beat the person with it, but now… now she wasn’t entirely certain what was real anymore and what was only fantasy.

In fact, Clara got to wait until the period before lunch before she heard anything from Basil again. She was in the middle of an attempt at briefly explaining the propaganda techniques used by the characters in _Animal Farm_ when he barged into the room, Mr. Atif’s coat flapping about his skinny frame as he went directly towards the back wall and the windows there.

“What are you doing?” she asked, feeling as though surprise was too strong an emotion to waste on the encounter. Clara and her students watched as he attempted to heft himself up towards the open window, doing a poor job of wiggling out of it.

“Miss? Who is this?” one of the students asked.

“This is Mr. Smith, our caretaker while Mr. Atif takes care of a few things at home,” she explained. Walking over towards Basil, she grabbed hold of one of his ankles and yanked down, pulling him back to the floor. Soaked in rain from the shoulders up and along his arms, he was an odd sight that made Clara falter slightly before repeating herself. “Answer me: _what are you doing_?”

“Checking for baby griffins,” he replied, his face amazingly straight for the words spoken. “We’re at the beginning of the birthing season, yeah, but it’s good to take measures now instea—” He was cut off by Clara holding up a finger, which caused him to stop mid-sentence and follow her when she crooked said finger and walked out into the corridor. “Yes?”

“What is the matter with you?” she hissed. “Baby _griffins_?!”

“They’re actually quite common around London, interestingly enough,” he claimed. “They’re diurnal when they’re small and easily mistakable for other creatures at a glance, but once they get to be about the size of a large cat they switch to being nocturnal and…” Basil stopped when Clara hit his shoulder, cutting him off again.

“I don’t care! Don’t do that when I’m in the middle of a lecture!”

“Hey, I’m not the one making eyes at a coblynau … well, part-coblynau, actually… now that I think about it, while there _is_ a trace, it wouldn’t surprise me if the ancestor was from three or four hundred years back, considering he’s only slightly odd-looking, not down-right _ugly_ …” He saw that Clara’s arms were folded across her chest and she was leaning on her one hip as she glared at him. “What? You know what a werewolf is, but not a coblynau? Being a teacher is an excellent parallel, I thought.”

“A coblynau never met Abbott and Costello,” she said flatly. “Now I don’t care if we have an infestation of giant spiders or murderous pepper pots or lizard people on our hands—act like a normal human being for once.”

“Then don’t come complaining to me when a window accidentally gets left open overnight and baby griffins get into your things,” he warned.

“You’re mental and trying to catch me off-guard, I know it,” she said. At that, she turned back around and went into her classroom, only to find that all her students were staring at her in confusion. “Is there a problem?”

“You’re never like that with Mr. Atif, Miss,” a girl in the front row said. “I thought he was trying to be funny.”

“He’s being a disruptive pain more than anything,” she replied. “Now, where were we?” Clara was cut off by a boy’s hand shooting up. “Yes…?”

“Why was he talking about baby griffins?”

“…because, as we already established, he was trying to be funny, but really wasn’t,” she said. “He’s used to dealing with older students, so take it as him not knowing how to handle lower secondary. **_Now_** , we left off around manipulated truths and loaded language…”

The class resigned themselves to return to the lesson, hoping that they would get to talk about the new caretaker soon. Some could sense that it was their teacher who was manipulating the truth merely so that they could finish the lesson in time for the period to end, though they all knew that it was beyond unproductive to call her out on it. Class eventually ended and it was time for Clara’s lunch period. She sat down hard in her chair.

‘ _Why does he have to be so difficult?_ ’ she wondered to herself. ‘ _It’s not like he has to do anything foreign to him—just tidy up until we can get a new substitute caretaker_.’ Clara thought about him attempting to tell her about baby griffins, his face almost affectionate once he began describing them. He was still rather soaked from the rain then, wasn’t he? His hair, excellent at being fluffy while dry, had become curly—almost wavy—when wet, something she had witnessed before when he showered back at her flat, and…

Clara went pale as she realized the disturbing fact: she was beginning to fancy Basil. Not only was she beginning to fancy Basil, a man whom she knew to nearly be as old as her _dad_ , she realized she was dangerously close to fancying someone whom she only knew of as a _dog_ when they first met. She groaned in realization and let her head drop to her desk—what the bloody hell, Clara Oswald?

The next full moon—and his eviction from her flat—couldn’t come soon enough.


	5. Chapter 5

A week had passed since Clara had brought Basil into Coal Hill for the first time and, for the most part, things seemed to be going smoothly. The rain had finally stopped—sort of, as it _was_ still England in autumn, after all—and there was very little that distracted them from their jobs. Clara still taught literature, Basil wandered the corridors unfettered except in times of messy, flu-driven need, and life went on. Nothing bothered them as Basil had feared; it was good.

Sitting in her classroom during her lunch hour, Clara idly marked the last of her papers while munching on a sandwich. Once she was done, there would be nothing left for the weekend, as her Grade Sevens were all watching a movie and her advanced class was doing research for their roman á clef essays. Just a pair of relaxing, non-productive couple of days where she did not have to do anything for anyone, with Basil already having agreed to cook instead of getting takeaway delivered. She _knew_ that what she needed was a nice, extended holiday, away from anything resembling her normal routine—school-year _or_ summer, thank you—but that wasn’t very likely and made the best of it.

Ah, there it was—the last sloppily-penned essay was done.

Clara left the stack of papers to be entered into her marking program later, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes to let contentment wash over her. There was something truly satisfying about only having to input scores and she wouldn’t trade it for anything. She was enjoying herself so much that she only just barely heard the knock on her open classroom door.

“’Scuse me; you Miss Oswald?”

Clara opened her eyes and glanced towards the door. There was a young woman—young enough to have once been a student, yet old enough to have last been a student _years_ ago—with a nervous look on her face and a visitor’s pass in her hand. She was wearing mostly denim, with patches on her jacket, and had her dark, super-curly hair pulled back into one big puff at the back of her head.

“Yes, and you are…?”

“Bill… Bill Potts; you’ve got my graduate professor hostage…?”

“Oh, yes, good to finally meet you, Bill.” Clara stood and shook the woman’s hand, then gestured to a spare chair that she had nearby. “What brings you here? Shouldn’t you need to find Basil?”

“The Doctor’ll come around here eventually, if I know him,” Bill shrugged. She took the chair and sat so that she could fold her arms over the top of the backrest and lean forward. “I much rather would like to hear from _you_ how he’s doing. Nardole was so upset when he got back to St. Luke’s that I haven’t been able to get a word out of him about how the Doctor’s doing. Pretty sure I’d trust you more than either of them anyhow.”

“I’m flattered,” Clara smirked. “How did you know to come here specifically?”

“The Doctor told me where he’s ‘working’ now,” Bill replied. “I called him a couple nights ago and this was the first day I could get free to come over here—had to see for myself the place where he’s cleaning up kids’ sick, of all things.”

“So _you’re_ who he was talking to… all of a sudden he stepped out onto the balcony and didn’t come in for two hours. Glad he’s not cheating on me.” Clara said it as a joke, hoping to get some sort of reaction out of Bill. There was none, at least that she could tell, and it nearly made her heart sink.

“That’s not his style, that I’m aware of.” Bill shrugged again, this time noncommittally, and exhaled. “He _is_ doing alright though, yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s doing fine.” Thinking the better of it, Clara stood and went over to the door, closing it to give them more privacy, and sat back down. “How much about this past month or so do you know about? Basil hasn’t told you much, has he?”

“Not much, yeah,” Bill said. “Last I saw from him, he was turning into that daft little doggo and scampered off, leaving his clothes and everything behind. I heard from him every now and then afterwards, but only a split second or two. The other day was the first time I had really talked to him in about a month. How’d you two meet, anyhow?”

“I adopted him out of a kennel.”

Bill’s eyes went wide and her brows rose a full inch. “Get out…!”

“Should’ve known he liked curry too much for someone with four paws,” Clara deadpanned. Bill smirked at that. “He’s only still around because he fought off a lindworm and lost a lot of blood—something about the full moon?”

“Don’t worry—it’s legit,” Bill assured. “I don’t know how it works, but the moon is sort of like a regenerative thing for him, something about radiation and fracturing and a bunch of stuff I wasn’t interested in, and I’ve seen it in action. An experiment he was working on flat-out blinded him a couple terms ago, but he got better after the full moon.”

“That’s weird…”

“…they’re all weird; I’m glad you’re human though. The Doctor needs a bit more close contact with normal humans and not Nardie, who’s about as much fun as a pillow of rusted nails.”

“I thought Basil said that even you were kidnapped by elves or something…? He talks quickly, as though I should know what he’s talking about. I mostly do, but… _really_ …?”

“If it sounds like something that used to be told to scare people back in the day, then it’s probably true.”

“Well that’s comforting,” Clara frowned.

“It’s not, but it’s something we live with once we realize what’s going on.” Bill went quiet and looked at the floor. “You _sure_ he’s alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” Clara replied. She gently touched Bill’s shoulder, as she would any of her students, and gave her a smile. “I promise, he’s fine.”

“He doesn’t take care of himself.”

“I’m caring for him; while he lives in my flat, I’m his carer.”

Bill was about to respond when Basil burst into the room, nearly slamming the door open and making the two women jump. “Clara! I need to show you this thi—oh! Bill! You never told me you were coming!” He allowed his graduate assistant to hug him, then flinching back when she smacked his shoulder.

“Stop running off!” Bill demanded. “You _do_ realize the situation you put me in when you leave, yeah?”

“You’re fully capable of handling things back at the office…”

“ _Things_ , yes; _Nardole’s temper_ , no. He’s acting like a jilted Victorian housewife from a bad comedy show.”

“You know where I am now; tell him to stop his complaining,” Basil frowned, “and stop being outraged. Save your outrage and righteousness and whatever else you’re ready to throw at me for when I give you no warning.”

“What did you need to show me, Basil?” Clara asked, recognizing that she needed to step in immediately. Basil and Bill were giving one another similar looks that were tossed about between parents and students on Parents’ Night, and that was not what she wanted to be privy to… not at least on her lunch break.

“Oh, yes, this!” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a large clump of tissue, which had been wrapped around tiny, hard balls of brown. “Coal Hill _does_ have baby griffins—I was right.”

Clara pursed her lips, giving the grinning Basil a flat look. “Are you holding poop?”

“I didn’t touch it…!” Clara and Bill both gave him a disapproving look, though he brushed it off. “Anyhow, I found this up on the roof in a cluster of leaves, grass, and fur; the build of the nest was consistent with known griffin rookeries.”

“What were you doing up on the roof?” Bill wondered.

“Being the caretaker, he sometimes has to go up there if only to check to see that no one else is,” Clara replied. She then turned back to Basil and pointed at the griffin droppings. “You said those were diurnal, yeah?”

“They used to all be so, but only the juveniles now.”

“…and why’s that?”

“All wild animals are becoming increasingly nocturnal as human activity increases—it’s part of the effect we have on ecosystems and accidental predation via our cars and buildings and whatnot. Griffins start out diurnal because that’s what they evolved into, though they quickly learn contrary behavior.”

“…meaning that we could see a baby griffin at any point in time from now until…?”

“Early to late February—they use some of the winter to hunt and learn where their local prey tends to stay.”

“Show me,” Clara demanded. “I’ve got twenty minutes until the next class shows up; show me that this is real and not some fairy story you think you can pull over on me since I am just a measly mortal, because guess what? I am _far_ from some measly mortal and I am going to see the real wonders in this world if it kills me.”

A grin crept onto Basil’s face, the sight of which made Clara grin back and Bill’s shoulders sag in a sigh.

“Come with me,” he said. He then spun on his heel and quickly dashed out of the classroom, more flapping his arms and gliding than running, at which Clara and Bill both chased after him. All three were soon on the roof, at the north side of a chimney, with the older two crouched down by an absolute mess of a nest.

“Doctor, as much as I approve of your sense of wonder,” Bill frowned, “I still have to remind you that we’re in a school. Miss Oswald has a class to get back to.”

“I’m keeping track of time, and they’re going to watch a movie anyhow,” Clara replied idly. She picked up a tuft of fur, soft in texture and light brown in color. “Is this them?”

“As is **_this_** ,” Basil said, holding up a down feather. It was the exact same color as the fur, which elicited a chuckle from Clara. “This must be from a newbie to flying—that’s why they’re not here.”

“ _Doctor_ …!”

“Billie Jean Potts, hush, I’m introducing Clara to something _nice_ from our side of life.”

“Don’t call me that.” She nudged Basil’s backside with her foot, causing him to fall forward into the nest. “We should be getting back down to the classrooms!”

“Really? Your name is _Billie Jean_?” Clara wondered.

“We’ve narrowed it down to Mum being a fan of tennis or of Michael Jackson, but either way it’s disturbingly ironic,” Bill replied. She then looked back at her mentor as he clamored out of the nest and watched as he sputtered fur and feathers from his mouth. “I’ll be staying with Heather’s sister for the night; you know how to get a hold of me.”

“Killjoy, killjoy, killjoy,” he scowled. Bill huffed off at that, not bothering to help her mentor get back to his haunches again. Once she was off the roof, Basil brushed himself off and began to pick the sticks and fur and feathers from his hair.

“Here, let me help you with that,” Clara smirked. She stood and went through his hair, getting griffin residue out of it. “I think you hit a mark.”

“She needs to stop trying to being so outraged all the time when someone attempts to ruffle her feathers,” Basil groused. “She doesn’t know what that emotion is, and if she keeps at it, she never will, even once she’s my age.”

“Maybe she does, but it’s of a different sort?”

“She applies outrage to irritation and discomfort, blowing things out of proportion,” he explained. “I try to make differentiating them part of my overall guidance of her, but it hasn’t fully sunken in yet. Actually, would you believe that she was worse when she first became my student? I was calling for volunteers to come to the board and crooked my finger to signal them to approach—she went _ballistic_ on me after class.”

“…then why did you even take her under your wing?” Clara asked. Basil let out a low laugh, as if remembering the event.

“She had the self-restraint to wait until class was over,” he replied. Just then, he heard a squawk, causing him to hold up a hand in signal for Clara to stop. “Do you hear that?”

She listened. “It sounds like a parrot, almost.”

“That’s no escaped parrot.”

Basil got back to his feet and the two quietly crept around the chimney, finding a trio of griffins putting their glittery finds in a pile. Only about the size of a large kitten, they were light brown, with cat paws, bird wings, and a head that was nearly a perfect blend of the two, with perky, tufted ears and beaks that would be truly dangerous within a month or two. The creatures dropped their treasures and stared up at the newcomers, vocalizing their own curiosity.

“Corvids are not the only things that steal shiny trinkets,” Basil said, voice soft and low. He bent down and allowed one of the griffins to rub itself against his outstretched hand. The creature purred in satisfaction, which fascinated Clara.

“How adorable,” she said. She knelt down and one griffin hopped up into her lap, attempting to cuddle against her arm. Petting it, she felt how its fur was silky and the feathers firm yet soft. She reached out towards the small horde of discarded pennies, glass beads, and small baubles, only for the third griffin to nip at her hand. “Ow! Oi, I just wanted to look!”

“I wouldn’t until they leave, if I were you,” Basil chuckled. He scratched the back of the griffin in his grasp and it rolled over, giving him access to its belly. “They’re rather protective of their horde; it only really gets bad when you have an adult griffin in a scrapyard attempting to steal a hubcap or discarded mirror.”

“The imagery is something else,” Clara said. She opened her mouth to say something else, yet was cut off by the bell signaling the changing of classes. “Bloody…! I’ve got to go!” After removing the griffin from her lap, she ran back towards the door to the interior of the building, going down the stairs quick as her wedged shoes would allow, and power-walked back to her classroom. She made it back with only a few seconds to spare, of which the Grade Sevens were blissfully unaware.

Popping the DVD into the telly cart’s player, Clara couldn’t help but think of Basil up on the rooftop with the baby griffins, with insane amounts of jealousy rippling over her. She sat down at her desk as the movie began; opening up her computer, she began to quietly input the marks from her final pile of papers, getting the remainder of her work out of the way.

Maybe, she wondered, there were baby griffins on the roof of her flat.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today, September 24, 2018, is my third anniversary on AO3! I truly cannot believe it’s been that long, and I’m hoping to keep up the fandom well into the future. Just know that it’s all thanks to you, dear reader! Your prompts over on tumblr, kudos, comments/reviews, and even fanart, is part of what fuels me, so thank you.

“So… what’s up with you and Miss?”

Basil glanced over at the teen sitting at his workbench, fiddling with the miniature set he was mending for the office display. Taking over Mr. Atif’s station meant he also took over Mr. Atif’s projects, two of which were the miniature set—a recreation of the school grounds—and keeping one Courtney Woods entertained when she was kicked out of her classes for disruptive behavior.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he said, going back to the tiny chess piece he was holding with tweezers. He adjusted his specs and attempted to concentrate. Mere seconds passed and Courtney was next to him, her nose dangerously close to the plastic end of his paintbrush.

“Ever since you started working here, you come in with Miss Oswald, _leave_ with Miss Oswald, and Millie, Harvey, and I saw you eating together at a restaurant more than once. Aren’t you married to someone who _isn’t_ Miss Oswald? She’s not married, but _you_ came with a ring.”

“I wear the ring, but my wife died years ago,” he muttered. “It’s a habit, not a barrier.”

“Oh, well that’s boring,” Courtney moped. She folded her arms on the workbench and rested her chin on them. “Here I was thinking there was some juicy quadrangle stuff going on.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Quadrangle?”

“Well, yeah; now it’s just you and Mr. Davies vying for Miss Oswald’s attention instead of there being a fourth player somewhere else. Love triangles are so _boring_ and predictable.”

“Where did you get an idea like that?” he asked. The girl simply shrugged.

“Mr. Davies was good friends with Miss Oswald back when Mr. Pink was alive. They always insist they’re only friends, but they’d look good together, don’t’cha think?”

“I think that Miss Oswald is capable of making her own decisions on who she wants to be with and why.” He put the chess piece down to dry and set his paintbrush on a rest in order to pocket his specs. “Don’t you have things to concentrate on other than poorly matching up your teachers? With your ability to talk your way out of things, you could be Prime Minister one day.”

“Can’t—I’ve got the wrong citizenship,” she shrugged. “Something, something, papers and shit never went through properly.”

“Language.”

“Okay: something, something, papers and _stuff_ never went through properly. Mum and Dad were overseas when I was born and now I’m not a British citizen until I can do it for myself.”

“Then become Prime Minister of _that place_ ,” he said. “Nothing’s stopping you.” He watched as the teen’s face twisted in a wild grin, a surreal sort of realization radiating from her.

“I’m gonna be President of the United States,” she declared. The end-of-period bell rang and she rushed out, grabbing her bag on the way and nearly knocking over Adrian as he went to open the door. With the student gone, he cautiously entered the room and knocked on the wall.

“Hey, you free?”

“Can’t you read?” Basil responded. Adrian tilted his head in curiosity, instead waiting for the interim caretaker to clarify. “The sign. On the door.”

Adrian looked, seeing the hand-made sign in the door’s window said “GO AWAY HUMANS”. He frowned, turning his attention back to Basil as he resumed work on the miniature set.

“That’s not funny,” the younger man said.

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Listen: there’s a leak in my classroom ceiling—Mr. Atif’s been trying to patch it best he can while we’re waiting on the funds for a plumber to clear, but it needs toggling every once in a while, and…”

“I’ll come in a minute,” Basil said, cutting Adrian off. He listened as the door closed and people milled about out in the corridor, wasting time before the start of their next class. Instead of allowing them to distract him, he plugged in the glue gun and began to take a tally of the remaining chess pieces that needed to be secured to the board in the model courtyard. All the pawns were accounted for, with him only having to worry about the back row of each side; once he was done with the glue, he would fix the leak in Davies’s ceiling.

Carefully dabbing minute blobs of the warmed glue on the bottom of the pieces, Basil put the pieces in place on the white side first, then the black side, before straightening his body to sit upright. His back was beginning to ache thanks to his lack of transforming as of late; the full moon, combined with semi-regular transformations, was part of what had kept him in such good shape over the years and now he was starting to feel the repercussions of relying on such measures. He was going to have to roll his spine over the armrest of the couch back at Clara’s flat again, he could tell.

 _Clara_. The thought of her figuring out he was suffering through creaky bones and sore bits made him embarrassed. She was young yet and still would be for a while—nearly thirty was no child, yet still was young enough to make him feel even older than he already was. He grabbed a bag full of tools and slung it over his shoulder as he left the workroom, a sense of dread filling him as he continued to think about his current impromptu flatmate and how she really deserved to be around someone more her age.

Possibly someone like Adrian, even if one of his distant ancestors _was_ a Welsh, workaholic, mining gnome.

Basil entered the leaky classroom to find it empty. A slow dripping noise came from the far wall, in the corner, and he grabbed the nearby stepladder and went to investigate. He moved the soaked and discolored ceiling tile to take a quick look at the pipe—it wasn’t anywhere near a joint, which meant there would likely need to be an entire pipe replaced, maybe more. Pondering his next course of action, he looked towards the door once he heard footsteps.

“Oh, hi Basil,” Clara said. She had walked in with Adrian, both holding their bagged lunch in-hand. “You hungry? Come on and join us.”

“I need to check in on this before lunch,” he replied pointedly. While he knew that his sense of smell was much worse than it was as a dog, it was still heightened enough to be able to smell her from across the room. The soft floral scent she wore that day was his favorite of her perfumes—the tips of his ears burned at the slightest whiff of it.

“Put a pan underneath it and remember to empty it before you leave tonight,” she insisted. The scent of her perfume strengthened and he looked down to see that she was standing directly under him. “Mr. Atif said that he had to wait for a licensed plumber’s assessment—relax.”

“It’s an iron-based piping system leaking from nowhere, Clara—everything’s going to need to be replaced. Nicking a pan from the kitchens won’t do anything to help.”

“I never said it would help; only maintain the situation the best you can.” She gently touched his calf, sending a jolt through his trousers and socks that he could barely hide his reaction towards. He wanted to lean in… he wanted the touch to never end…

“Leave him be, Clara,” Adrian said. “I knew we should have eaten lunch in your room…”

Basil silently descended the stepladder and walked out of the room, taking his bag of tools with him. He went back to the workroom and shut the door behind him, allowing it to lock the world out. Slumping down into the beaten, high-backed, cushioned desk chair that was likely from five headmasters ago, the werewolf stewed in his own thoughts. Things were all sorts of cluttering up his brain—a thing he did his best to prevent—and all of them pertained to one individual…

 _Clara_.

Of course, it wasn’t as though he _tried_ thinking about her. Actually, it was quite the contrary—Clara seemed to be popping up more and more into his mental processes as of late and it was an odd thing to say the least. Their relationship was no more than coworkers, than friends, than temporary flatmates, yet he was excited when he saw her, craved her attention, and longed for when they could be in the same room with one another. Normally he would consider that residual canine personality from his last transformation, yet it had been long enough to where he knew that wasn’t it in the slightest. Her being in Adrian’s room sent a pang of jealousy too great for him to handle, hence his abrupt departure over what felt like nothing. He tried to figure out what the source of the emotion was, the answer hitting him square in the gut.

It was not simply Clara that was causing the jealousy, nor was it their relationship, but it was _him_ … because he wanted _more_. He became aware of the blood rushing to his face and loins as he thought of her, the realization embarrassing him beyond compare. He could see the look on her face when she was scolding him for barging into her class, when she was playing with the baby griffins on the roof (a thing they were trying to do every day before they moved on to their next roost), when she just then was asking him to come join her for lunch…

…he could even remember, albeit hazily, how she was when she was brandishing that cricket bat, fighting off the lindworm without even the knowledge of what she was protecting him from. The front of his trousers began to feel tight and he felt guilty. He hadn’t realized it then, but _that_ display of might and fury had been the start of his feelings and they were now coming to a dangerous head.

Now the question was: should he tell Clara how he felt, or should he step aside and let the younger, more dashing, certainly cemented in her life, figure of Adrian Davies step up instead?

Just then, the door opened and Adrian stormed into the room; think the coblynau’s name and he shall reveal himself. He shut it behind him, taking a chair and using it as a wedge to keep it closed from the outside to ensure their privacy.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“I take it this means you _still_ cannot read?”

“No, I’m talking about whatever it was that just happened back at my room,” Adrian clarified. “I’ve seen you posturing around Clara these past couple of weeks, then going and storming off like that—what the hell are you doing?”

“Working through something, alright?!” Basil snapped. He raised an eyebrow at the chair-wedge and snorted. “Like that’ll stop anyone.”

“All I wanted was to see if you could do anything about the leak in my ceiling, not stomp out with a tile half-out and my coworker confused as to why you won’t join us for lunch.” He put his hands on the workbench and leaned forward, putting his weight on the worn wooden surface. “I don’t care what you think, or the students, or the busybody secretary, or anyone else for that matter; leave Clara be or else she’s just going to be hurt even more. It was a miracle that she came out of the depression she found herself in after Danny died—she can’t go back because you decide to play pals until it’s not convenient for you.”

“I’m not playing at anything.”

“Then start acting like it.” Adrian pulled the chair from the door and put it back in its place. “I promised my mate that I’d look out for his fiancée as long as I can. He might not’ve been able to answer anymore, and she can do as she wants, but that doesn’t mean that I will let _you_ mess with her. Although she’s strong, even the strongest have their weak spots, and that’s what their friends and family are for… to guard what they cannot.” He then left, slamming the door shut behind him. A broom slid off the wall next to the door thanks to the force, clattering on the floor.

“Not a rockslide, but I’ll take it,” Basil grumbled. He put his specs back on and continued working on the miniature set. Ignoring all other things, he worked all through the remaining periods, not registering the bells and teenaged commotion in the corridor, until the door opened and he heard Clara’s voice again.

“Basil? It’s time to go.”

“I’ll catch the bus,” he replied, not glancing up from his positioning of a tree. “I still need to fix that leak in Davies’s room, and I think it’ll take me a while.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then don’t beat yourself up over it if you can’t figure out what to do,” she reminded him. She closed the door gently and left, after which Basil leaned back in his chair and slumped slightly. He stayed there until he heard no more people outside his door, wanting to keep things as contained as possible, with no more interacting with non-Clara humans for the remainder of the day.

With the source of the leak eventually found and temporarily patched with a spray sealant (they truly were going to have to replace the whole pipe system in the school when all was said and done), Basil went and locked up the building and left for Clara’s flat. He formulated a plan while on the bus, one that would minimize the impact of what he was about to do, and decided that it was better to put it into action that night. It wasn’t going to be easy, by any means, but it was at least going to be doable.

He had barely lifted his hand to knock on the flat door when Clara opened it, her face broadcasting that she was ready to have a lengthy sit-down-and-chat that he was not about to engage in. She stood to the side to allow him entry, though he went straight to the sitting room, making her wonder what it was that was happening.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she demanded. She watched as he grabbed his carryall and began searching the sitting room for his things. “What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“I can see that, but why?”

“I think I’m going to stay at Coal Hill for a while; there’s a camping bed I can use so I can sleep in my office.”

“Basil, you said yourself that you can’t go too far without someone there with you,” Clara said firmly. “Talk to me—you’re only going to feel better if you talk.” He remained silent as he continued stuffing his clothes in the carryall, which only served to enrage her. “What is going on with you?! I only want to help! Why are you being such an idiot?!”

“I’m not being an idiot!” he snapped back.

“Not the way I see it!”

“Well, circumstances have changed, alright?!” He angrily zipped up the carryall and hoisted it over his shoulder, walking towards the door. “I’ll see you at Coal Hill.”

“No,” she replied. He stopped walking partway towards the flat door and turned his head to look at Clara, who had tears streaming down her face. “You are going to tell me precisely what happened or else you are never going to see me again. Answer me.”

“It’s not that simple, Clara,” Basil sighed. He turned around to face her, free hand scratching at his scalp. “Do you think I _want_ to leave?”

“You certainly are acting like it.”

“Well, I don’t,” he stated. “I want to stay in the worst way, but I know that if I do, it can’t be like we’ve been going on.” He saw her start to tremble, which made him nervous.

“Why…?” she asked, swallowing hard. He sighed heavily and put down his carryall, walking back to properly face her again. Her eyes were glassy with tears, breaking his heart by the very sight of them.

“This is why.”

Basil gently leaned down towards Clara and pressed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss. He pulled away to see that she seemed even more confused, staring up at him in silence.

Just as he went to turn away, however, and he was pulled down by his forearm, nearly losing his balance as he was grabbed by his hair and ears and pulled into another kiss. When Clara let go, Basil stumbled back, his expression wide-eyed and taken aback.

“If you are not in my bed in twelve seconds, I am going to take you right where you stand,” she warned. He could see that breathing was more pronounced, her stance firm, and her face resolute.

She wanted him.

Grabbing Clara’s hand, Basil went to her bedroom as ordered. He was barely inside the room before she had shed him of his hooded sweatshirt and had her hands on his belt. She tugged urgently, not even registering that she had pushed him down onto her bed and was climbing into his lap.

“Shit, my fingers are too shaky,” she cursed. He took her by the wrists and brought her hands up to his shoulders before letting go to hold her face.

“You’re fine,” he assured. The pads of his thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, wiping away the frustrated tears that were beginning to fall from her eyes. “Don’t worry about anything, because you’ll never look any different than the brave, fierce, confident woman I’ve come to know over the past weeks, and there is nothing anyone can change that.”

“…promise…?” she asked.

“Promise.” He chuckled as he undid his belt and let it drop to the floor, then working on the buttons of her blouse. “If it would make you feel any better, I’m fairly certain we’d have a cheerleader if the dead could talk.”

“Of course Danny would want me to be with someone if he couldn’t be there for me,” Clara said. She reached to the back of her skirt and undid the zip, allowing herself to wriggle out of it. “He and I both knew that would happen if we didn’t work out for whatever reason. That’s how people have to approach relationships these days, if you weren’t aware.”

“I meant _River_ ,” Basil murmured in her ear. Clara finished pulling his t-shirts off of him and pushed him so that he was laying on his back beneath her. He stared up at her, drinking in her beauty and power. “The past is the past and we are here _now_ , Clara. You are the one in possession of my heart and I expect that you make full use of it.”

Instead of answering, she touched his side, right where the wounds he had received from the lindworm were nearly entirely faded into scars. She leaned down, pressed their lips together, and kissed him hungrily.

“Forget the moon,” she breathed into the kiss, “I am going to make you see stars.”

Bent on keeping her promise, she rode him until neither could see straight, with both grinding their hips and urging the other forward. By the time they were both collapsed in bed, completely nude and spent and too tired to even hold one another properly, any tension or reservations they had held earlier was gone, with the only thing remaining was their growling stomachs that made them giggle at the very sound. Basil ordered some delivery, they ate in whatever pajamas they could find, and were on one another again before they finally went to sleep.

As she began to succumb for the night, Clara knew that she was precisely where she belonged as she wrapped her arm around Basil’s chest while he slept. The slow, rhythmic movement of his breathing was a comfort she had nearly forgotten as it had felt so long ago since she last experienced such a thing. She closed her eyes and hugged him from behind, smiling into his hair as she felt his hand touch hers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where I make stuff up. You're welcome.

For Basil and Clara, waking up the morning after they first had sex was like a bizarre and lovely dream. They spent the early morning cuddled up against the draft eking in through the window, talking quietly about how they wanted to go from there, making sure that they had a plan both could agree on should their relationship be more than a quick tryst. It was a tedious conversation to say the least, but they were able to get out of bed knowing they were a bit more certain about the other’s plans for the future.

Where would they live? Apart until the end of the school year, then she would move to Bristol to be where he had an _excellent_ tenured position and she could flex her teaching skills in a new environment.

When would they make their relationship known to family and friends? During the Christmas holidays, when people would be gathered together anyhow and there was a greater chance that her stepmother would be sworn to her best behavior.

Would they get married? Of course, you daft stick-insect, and maybe even have a kid or two as well.

The very thought brought Basil to tears; he had long ago accepted he would never be a father after his first wife told him she could not have children, yet he allowed himself to break down in Clara’s arms as she held him and scratched his scalp in an effort to soothe and calm his crying. He would be a very old man by the time any child of theirs was grown, yet it was a second chance that he was not going to give up for anything.

“Wait until the kids actually _happen_ before worrying about all that,” Clara teasingly warned.

They began to ready themselves for work shortly thereafter, with Basil unable to take his eyes off Clara for longer than a few moments. She relished the attention, knowing she hadn’t felt this good—this adored—in _months_ , and that there was the chance it would not end for a long, long time. It was the sort of thing that made her silently remember a man now gone, assuring him that she would never forget what he meant to her, because while Basil was now in her life, for what felt like for good, it did not mean that Danny was replaced. She would have been happy with either man, truly, and she was glad to have been able to know them both.

Pulling into their usual parking spot, Clara and Basil walked into the school building together and parted ways in front of the main office, sharing a longing look before she went into the office and he went down the corridor. With the secretary on the phone with what sounded like an irate parent, Clara was able to go check her pigeon-hole without the usual running commentary.

“Oh, there you are, Clara,” Adrian noticed as he came out of Mr. Coburn’s cupboard of an office. “Everything going alright?”

“Yeah; what about you? Nothing bad, is it?” She motioned towards the office door, which made him stand close as he pulled mail from his slot in the wall.

“I just asked for an extra week after the Christmas holiday; Mum wants me to help throw a surprise birthday party for Dad.” He lowered his voice and pretended to shift through his mail. “How about you? I saw you left work alone last night.”

“Basil and I had a row at the flat once we were both there, yeah, but we’re better,” she replied. The thought to tell him about all what had transpired flickered across her mind, yet she silenced it, as she didn’t want to give him cause to worry. He would be _right_ to worry, he had possible ground to stand on if he was concerned that she and Basil were moving their relationship along quicker for his comfort, and decided that it was best that he learned what was going on along with everyone else. “Your dad’s turning sixty, yeah? I thought he didn’t want a party after the disastrous fifty-fifth.”

They chatted until the secretary was off the phone and then left, going to their respective classrooms to prepare for the day. Clara entered her room to find a flower sitting on her desk, fresh out of the courtyard beds and a crumpled water bottle for the vase, and she blushed slightly before getting to work.

It was exhilarating, to say the least, to be in love again.

* * *

The weekend came, with Clara and Basil enjoying their newfound dimension to their relationship, and it passed without much incident. They continued as they had before, except this time with bouts of sex and plenty of cuddling punctuating the daylight hours. By the time Monday morning rolled around, it was extremely tempting for them to both call out sick and claim that they had food poisoning from a bad curry, though they stuck it out and prepared to go in anyhow, despite their reluctance.

When they got to Coal Hill, however, a disorienting scene was there to greet them. The grounds were cordoned off by police tape, guarded by officers that were looking extremely tight-lipped about anything. Clara parked her motorbike nearby and went with Basil to push towards the front of the crowd of passersbys that was gathering at the school gate.

“What’s going on?” she frowned. The officer looked at her and stood his ground.

“There’s a crime scene inside, Miss,” he explained. “No one was hurt, but there’s extensive damage to the interior of the building. I suggest you head off towards work; the crowd is only going to get bigger.”

“We _work here_ ,” Clara said, grabbing onto Basil’s arm. Looking at the pair, the officer nodded and lifted the tape.

“Then you’ll have to go and answer some questions,” he replied. Clara then dragged Basil into Coal Hill, the two of them looking around carefully as they were ushered through the place by a different police officer. It was dark in some spots, with only the light from outside illuminating the corridors, and eerily silent thanks to the lack of teachers and students both. Debris was thrown here and there, making the interior look like a generational-level storm had ripped through without damaging any of the other buildings around it, a thought that sent chills up Clara’s spine. There were even gouges in the walls in some spots, which made things all the more unnerving. The staff lounge was being utilized as a command center, where the sergeant who was in charge of the “break-in” investigation at her flat was overseeing the operation.

“Oh, Miss Oswald; sorry to see you again so soon on such poor terms,” she said. The sergeant shook Clara’s hand, then Basil’s. “So then you both work here?”

“Yes,” Clara said. “I’m here in a permanent capacity and Basil is doing us a favor by being our temp caretaker for the remainder of the term.”

“Basil? Wasn’t that your dog’s name?”

“Coincidence,” he chuckled. “I’m normally a lecturer in Bristol, but decided to get my hands dirty while on sabbatical. Do you need my ID from St. Luke’s, or…?”

“Not yet; I’m just trying to create a list of people who would possibly be suspects, and I have to speak to every member of staff here, no matter how temporary,” the sergeant said. “Unfortunately, Mr….?”

“Smith; Basil John Smith.”

“Mr. Smith, you being temporary help puts you further up on the list, but a quick look into your normal life in Bristol should clear you. Why are you on sabbatical?”

“Felt like it,” he shrugged. “It irritates my secretary and graduate assistant, but they’re not the ones with more tenure than they know what to do with. I wasn’t entirely sure about how to spend this break until I heard about Clara’s flat being broken into—since then I’ve been staying with her so she feels a bit safer at night.”

“Have _you_ heard anything about the regular caretaker, Mr. Ataullah Sayyid Wasim Juda Karim Atif, during your time working here?”

“Only that he is being a better son than I ever was,” Basil said. “I wouldn’t suspect him; actually, I wouldn’t know how _to_ turn my sights on him, but he has enough worries about his parents to be capable of anything destructive here.” He raised an eyebrow, unsure of what to make of the sergeant’s stony expression. “You really don’t believe he did anything, do you?”

“A catastrophic amount of damage was done to the building’s systems,” she said. “Electrical, plumbing, heating, telecommunications, CCTV… it’s all down and shall take weeks to repair, and that’s provided that the building is still structurally sound. Whoever did this _knows_ what they’re doing, where they were going, and what to target.”

“That sounds more like a group of troubled former students than a man preparing to support his parents away from the homeland; I mean, this _is_ his livelihood, after all,” he replied. Clara watched as the sergeant pondered that notion for a moment, the seed implanted in her brain.

“This is true; go and speak to Anderson in the corner there. He’s taking photos of staff and their credentials—your superiors will let you know when it is safe to return to your normal work schedules.”

“Good; seems like we can take that hiking trip to the Cairngorms before winter sets in after all, Clara,” Basil said. He kissed the top of her head and went towards the man with a camera over by the window; soon as she was out of his line of vison, the sergeant raised her eyebrows and pointed at Clara, then at Basil, and back again. When Clara silently nodded in confirmation, the policewoman nodded in a mixture of impressed, approval, and a smidgeon of jealously to top it off.

“Oh, is there any way that I can go to my classroom to see what’s been done?” Clara asked. “I need to make sure what I leave in my desk is either alright or replaceable.”

“I can have someone escort you through the building, as long as you promise to not go and interfere with any sort of investigation,” the sergeant said. “Some of the rooms are fairly torn up; it might honestly take until the end of _next_ _week_ before we even let anyone back in to clean.”

“Thank you; I appreciate it.”

Once the constable in the corner had taken photos of Basil, Clara, and their credentials, another was called over to escort them throughout Coal Hill. The caretaker’s workroom was first, with Clara standing in the corridor while Basil high-stepped around debris to get towards where he had left one of Clara’s travel coffee mugs the week before. Water was pooled in dips in the floor, with the miniature set smashed, things ripped from the walls, and the faint hint of natural gas still lingering in the air. Her room was little better, with desks thrown around and destroyed, with her own desk a mangled wreck of wood splinters and steel. She was able to salvage some lesson plans, some books she needed for new lesson plans, and a couple personal trinkets from her desk before they left, being escorted all the way to the motorbike before the police officer would let them go.

A silent bike ride later and Clara and Basil were walking back into the flat block. After being stopped by Mrs. Singhdal for a moment as she walked her cat, they went towards the lift up towards Clara’s place.

“You didn’t have to lie to the sergeant,” she said quietly.

“Lie? About what?”

“About why you’re with me,” she clarified.

“I wasn’t, not entirely,” he replied. “I did want to stay with you until you felt a bit safer about your flat, but then the lindworm happened that night, and that led to where we are now. My lies are mostly about omitting certain parts of the truth, which you are now immune to now that we’re, um…” His face went pink, blush tinging his skin quickly as their weekend of excess came to mind.

“Alright… then who do you think did it?” she asked, changing the subject. “I saw the way you were looking at the damage done in Mr. Atif’s workroom—you were figuring it out.”

“It was a pard.”

She knuckled her ear and furrowed her brow. “Pardon?”

“A _pard_ , P-A-R-D, an animal mostly left in hundreds-years-old bestiaries, but is a very real thing,” he explained. “Ancient scholars thought that it was what a lion bred with to make leopards, but those idiots couldn’t get their hands off their lower bits long enough to think clearly for more than a few minutes.”

“You sound as if you know from experience.”

“There’s more shared by scholars throughout the ages than the modern ones care to admit; I keep the good ones on my staff, and there are schools without such goings on, but they’re disgusting when you _are_ able to find them,” he said. They quieted as they reached the flat block, going and picking up the conversation again once they were in the safety of Clara’s place. “Anyhow, a pard is a large feline, quick on its feet and with a spotted coat—that much the ancient scholars got right. Very few specimens were actually caught or killed, hence why most information on it was wildly inaccurate.”

“…and let me guess: the supernatural community knows all about them?”

“Bingo.” Basil pecked Clara’s lips with his and grabbed his carryall from behind the couch, bringing it back into the bedroom. “Pards are much faster than anything else on land, capable of regularly moving at over three hundred kilometers an hour for extended periods of time; it’s only recently that human transportation technology has even begun to rival and outstrip a pard’s speed. Usually only the fairies or elves can handle one in top form, though it has been caught by others, including crafty mortals, in the past.”

“Then what does it do?”

“It, plainly put, is an animalistic form for pure chaos. Pards have been known to kill for fun, food, or because it feels threatened—there is no way to tell until you watch what it does with the corpse afterwards—they are attracted to mischief of all sorts, from digging up municipal flower beds to real physical damage to a building’s structural integrity.”

“Okay, but why does a deadly legendary cat want to destroy a human school?”

“To send a message; pards are exceptionally intelligent, though their reasoning skills are more primal and underdeveloped than any humanoid. The species as a whole has learned to rarely kill for anything other than sustenance and protection these days, so they have therefore turned to malicious destruction of property, and their durability is what helps them as they take out systems they recognize as being important to others.” Basil stopped tossing some of his things in the carryall and began wildly moving his arms about in explanation. “I have seen them knock over trees, figure out how to get under a car’s bonnet, and even bite clean through live power lines without being hurt. There are probably at least four or five conceits of pards wandering around _just_ this side of the Thames, and for all I know Coal Hill was the work of _all of them_.”

“So they’re trying to scare someone?”

“Yes, _me_ , and it’s working.”

Clara frowned at that, not liking where this was going. “You can’t seriously think that they’re out to get you…”

“Mr. Atif’s workroom—my workroom—was one of the worst hit, and not because it was where many of the systems are controlled from; they can smell me and know I haven’t been transforming. They want to get rid of me.”

“Any particular reason…?”

“What does one apex predator do when it encounters another in the wild? Wolves have been known to fight with tigers, foxes, bears, leopards, you name it, and this pard considers me to be no exception. I’m not going to let it get the best of me.”

“Hence the Cairngorms?” Clara asked, putting her own carryall on the bed and pulling some jumpers from her closet.

“Precisely—River’s family owned a private bothy of sorts up there and now it’s mine. It’s too cold for pards that far north, with not enough people for them to prank or things to destroy to make the effort worthwhile, and there will be extra room for me in case I need it when the full moon’s out.”

“Okay, I’ll bite—why would you need the room during the full moon?”

“It will have been well over a month and a half, nearly two, since I’ve transformed; my body might thrash about a bit if past experience proves correct,” he replied. “I’d rather it be the bothy that I tear up and need to repair than this flat.”

Clara nodded at that, putting the last things in her bag before zipping it up. She then grabbed her mobile and a portable charger, plugging both in while she brought up train information. “Want me to book the tickets?”

“You beat me to it,” Basil said. His mobile then rang, which he picked up immediately. “Hold on, Clara—Bill, you have the most interesting timing...”

“ _Doctor, can you explain the news story I’m looking at on Heather’s mobile, where it seems the school you’re moonlighting in is completely trashed?_ ”

“Cutting to the point, huh?” There was no answer, so he continued. “Clara and I just finished getting back from Coal Hill—we were able to walk around a wee bit and it looks like the work of pards. Their trademarks were everywhere; I overheard the police say they think the claw and tooth marks are planted, but I know they’re the real deal.”

“ _You telling me that there’s a conceit of pards wandering unseen around London, destroying schools at random?_ ”

“I’m telling you that there’s **_multiple_** conceits of pards wandering around London, ready to destroy the school I work in in order to drive me out due to competitive exclusion while I cannot fight back,” he replied. “I’m going to Scotland for a bit; won’t be back until after the full moon.”

“ _You sure it’s safe to do that?_ ”

“I’ve got Clara to help keep me alive; don’t worry, she’s done it before.”

“ _Put her on the call_.”

“It’s for you,” he said, holding out the mobile towards Clara. She took it, cautiously putting the device to her ear.

“Hello…?”

“ _I want him back_ ,” Bill demanded. “ _Make sure that he comes back, or I will never forgive you_.”

“Don’t worry; Aunt Clara and Uncle Basil will be within reliable network reception again before you know it.” She then hung up without giving Bill the chance to respond, handing the mobile back to Basil. “You’ve got a feisty one on your hands.”

“I enjoy being around strong women; helps me fight against the lupine instinct, as it were.”

“You’re a bad alpha male if your preference in bed is anything to go by,” she teased. She began to walk out of her bedroom, only for Basil to grab her from behind. He wrapped his arms around her protectively, with her back to his front so that she could feel him pulse with arousal.

“I’m the _perfect_ alpha male,” he murmured in her ear. He left a kiss at the back of her jaw, grinning against her skin. “I merely don’t want to fall prey to the downfalls of male wolves and humans alike, attempting to feed off a woman as though she were a submissive doe. You are, and should be, much more than that, and _that_ is what draws me to you. Only the best men have someone besides them keeping them in line; it would be an honor if you were that for me. What do you say?”

“Are you asking me to be alphas with you?”

“You can say that.”

She turned within his grasp and went on her tiptoes, bringing his face down for a kiss. “Being co-alphas I can definitely handle.” Clara giggled as Basil picked her up in order to press her into the wall, their faces level with one another. She hugged his waist with her thighs, holding on tight as he pressed kisses to her throat and kept her firmly in place. He growled in satisfaction as he rocked his body against hers.

“Book the tickets with enough time to get a decent shag in before we go, please?”

“We’re saying ‘ _please_ ’ now?”

“It’s barely comfortable enough to _sleep_ in the bothy, let alone _shag one another_ while there.”

“…then we’re getting a sleeper-train out.”

“Yes, Boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Pards? Actual entries in medieval bestiaries. Their attributes? Only that they had spotted coats and were really fast, and the thing about mating with lions to make leopards. The picture I saw looked like it was ready to wreak some havoc on someone's stuff, as per many bestiary entries, so I rolled with it.


	8. Chapter 8

When planning on doing outdoor things during the autumn months, there is a very important thing that people should remember while in Scotland, just as they would in many other places. As the air cools off it loses its ability to hold moisture, which creates weather that is not only brisk and chilly, but wet as well. It’s the sort of chill that gets deep into one’s bones, down into their very soul. Snow and ice may attack and numb the senses, as an over-utilized air conditioning unit might, but the wet-cold of the autumn season transforms an individual into something else entirely, seeping down into a person’s very being until there is nothing that isn’t chilled and damp and dreary, feeling as though there shall never be anything warm and dry again, nor were things ever like that to begin with.

That was the sort of season that Basil and Clara came across when they found themselves dropped off at a bus stop in what felt like the middle of nowhere, the day after leaving London. Armed with bags of personal belongings and food, they hiked through the surrounding Cairngorm Mountains until just before sundown, when they come across a small hut partway built into a hillside. A worn wooden sign emblazoned with “GO AWAY HUMANS” in large lettering was attached to the front door (with smaller print saying “if it’s not on a map or a list, it’s not for you to use”) and old padlocks on the door and wooden shutters kept the place closed. The lock on the door gave way wonderfully despite the rust, Basil was surprised that he could still find the keys to the shutters, and soon they had the windows open and a fire going.

“This place is in amazing shape,” Clara marveled. The inside walls were all made of stone, with flooring to match, and a sturdy-looking wooden roof above them. There was a table, a couple chairs, some well-beaten pans, a few cupboards, and an elevated wooden bunk that their sleeping bags were already laid out on. Most everything felt still a bit damp from the humidity, yet nothing appeared to have been touched in a long time, even by a rouge mouse.

“I have a ward around the place, put there by an old friend who used to dabble in basic magic, and that taps into most animals’ fear and cautionary instincts,” he claimed. “The sign changes languages depending on who reads it, the ground around the walls is solid enough to have them not need much patching, and there is a drainage system that keeps everything from flooding from rainwater or snowmelt. We did some work on the place about fifteen years ago, so all the wood here is relatively new, as well as pressure-treated and moisture-sealed so that nothing warps too horribly, too quickly, while we’re not around.”

“How did River’s family get this place? I thought these sorts of places were all owned publically or something like that.”

“Most in the area are, but not ours.” Basil pulled on a couple of cords that were hanging from the ceiling, afterwards going to the pump at the sink and working it until water flowed. “Her mother’s family has roots nearby, leading to property claims that are probably older than the union of the crown, and this place was grandfathered in when the park was created, or close to it; I don’t remember the precise details anymore.”

“Did you come here often?”

“Not as often as we would have liked, no.”

“I think we should make an effort, given how secluded it is,” Clara suggested. “It could be useful for when we want some time alone.”

“It could,” he chuckled. “Can you imagine Nardole following us out here?”

“Don’t say that; he might feel he’s being summoned,” she laughed. “I can see him using the opportunity to do nothing but complain. He seems to be rather good at complaining.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Basil closed the shutters and locked them up, keeping the dark night out and the warmth in. “I need the moon to be full soon—I cannot wait around with only a partial moon to keep things from going sideways.”

“It doesn’t work to just stay out in a partial moon for longer?” Clara wondered.

“No; I need the full strength of the moon. Instead of like charging a battery, it’s more like supplying power to a house. If you only allow seventy-five percent of a current into the wiring, nothing will be able to run normally like it would at a hundred percent, no matter how many other things you shut off.” His arms were acting wildly as he spoke, adding silent emphasis to his words. “I can only transform partway right now, which is only going to cause issues.”

“…and what if it’s cloudy that night? It’s not like we’re in the _least_ snowiest place in Britain right now—I’m surprised it was _just_ _raining_ earlier…”

“All I need is half an hour of combined time under the full moon over the course of the night,” he replied. “That gives the clouds most of the night to be pesky and in-the-way.”

“…and if you don’t get that…?”

“You can leave if Coal Hill’s back in session in the meantime, but I would have to stay here until I get what I need from a full moon.”

“Winter’s on the way! A new term at your job! You can’t just run away from those things!” Clara felt exasperated about the fact that she even _had_ to mention it. “Do you always run like this?”

“No, I do not!” Basil insisted. Clara gave him a flat look, which she did not let up until he finally relented. “Okay, yes, I do this a lot, but if it was really that much an issue, then I would’ve been fired for it by now, don’t you think?”

“I _think_ that you need to make sure you stop this if you want to actually advance this relationship any farther than this bothy,” she replied. She stared at him, sizing up the situation, and nodded gently. “Don’t run, and if you have to, then you run with me.”

“Promise,” he said. Holding his hand out, he waited until Clara took it in her own before allowing a grin to stretch across his face. “When I say run, we run.”

“I lay claim to Fiancée Vetoes, which will later mature into Wife Vetoes, so that you’re aware,” she reminded him. She pulled him towards the bunk and they both wedged themselves in between the sleeping bags, glad that they were able to use each other for warmth as they were careful about how to cushion themselves from the wooden surface. Using his own arm and a bunched up coat as a pillow, Basil had Clara rest her head on his chest, keeping her close.

“Veto all you like—chances are that you’ll agree with me when the times come.”

“Mmmhmm, sure,” she teased sleepily. With weather outside good for napping and cuddling, combined with a long day of hiking after a train ride behind them, Clara quickly succumbed to the sleep she didn’t even know was waiting for her. Being snug up against Basil kept her warm and comfortable, and she didn’t fight the urge to slip into a gentle dream.

Lulled by the thoughts of future visits to the bothy, of a future with Basil, she dreamt on.

* * *

_High grasses, low shrubs, and rolling hills; the sky was grey and a gentle breeze teased her hair and jacket as she stood, looking out over the vista. A hand took hers and she leaned on the arm it was attached to—she didn’t have to look to know who it was. Thunder rumbled low in the distance, signaling a storm was coming_

_“It’s gorgeous,” she said._

_“It is ugly,” Basil replied. “All the beauty I need is holding my hand.”_

_“Flatterer.”_

_“It gets me good things, I’ll give flattery that.” He turned and faced her, holding her face as they kissed. The wind began to pick up slightly, just enough to notice, though the two gave them no heed._

_Just as Clara thought she would collapse from weakened knees and a lack of breathing, a peal of thunder made Basil step back from her. He clutched his head and shouted, clearly in pain, and looked as though he was ready to fall over._

_“Basil…?!”_

_Lighting nearby caught her attention, striking one of the few trees within her view of the vista below. It only took a moment to look away, yet when she turned her attention back to Basil, Clara felt her heart go into her throat—fur had sprouted all over his body and his features were beginning to change. His face grew a snout, his fingers transformed into claws, and his clothes tore as he struggled to stay in them. She took a step towards him and—_

_One swipe and she recoiled, her jacket cut clean through and blood began to spurt from the openings. She stared at him, eyes wide and terrified, and the horror set in—there was no sense of recognition in his eyes in return, only a primal and animalistic urge…_

_…and that urge was hungry._

_Clara quickly turned on her heel and ran, injured arm be damned. With Basil tied up with the concept of leaving his clothes as he thrashed about, she was able to get a decent head start, nearly making it to the tucked-away bothy before she heard the wolf’s howl behind her. She made it into the bothy and used the wooden cross-bolt to secure the door; at least now she had time to collect herself and think for a moment. There was little there that she could utilize as weaponry and the main of what she had was fire-related, the proper fresh materials for which were all outside. She was just going to have to wait it out until easier prey came along and distracted the werewolf—he could only stalk outside for so long…_

_With her jacket off and the bandage she was wrapping around her arm cooperating, Clara sat on the floor and braced herself against the bunk as she shook in terror. It was probably only an accident, she told herself. He was likely to be himself again after things had a chance to settle down. It wasn’t even like the moon was out or anything._

_Just then, there was a large THUD against the door, accompanied by a canine snarl. Clara scrambled over towards the fireplace and found the poker as the noise continued. She held it with the pointy part out, hoping that it would be enough of a deterrent to stop the werewolf from approaching her. The wood near the hinges began to splinter and the rusted fasteners holding together the bolting system started to give way. Before long, the door came down all together and the wolf-man snarled as he stepped inside._

_All Clara had time to do was catch his soulless, unfeeling eyes before her defense was brushed aside and a strong set of sharp teeth wrapped themselves around her neck…_

Screaming and sobbing, Clara woke up in hysterics. Basil attempted to hold her close and prevent her from thrashing off the bunk, yet that got him smacked in the face and kneed in the crotch. They both fell from the bunk to the floor, still tangled in their sleeping bag cocoon, and scrambled to get away from one another. Basil made it out first, with Clara then taking the sleeping bags and reflexively pulling them tighter around her.

After a moment to catch his breath, Basil stared at his fiancée in complete shock and confusion. He carefully approached the bundle of sleeping bag and gingerly put his arm where he figured her shoulder was—she recoiled at his touch.

“Clara…?” There was no reply. “Clara…? What’s wrong? Answer me, Clara.” She peeked out at looked at him, allowing her arm to poke out so that she could touch his stubbly face.

“It’s _you_ ,” she nearly marveled. “…but you were…”

“I was what, Clara?” A nasty feeling roiled in the pit of his belly—he did not like her expression, as fear did not become her. “It’s clear you had a nightmare, so what happened in it?”

“You transformed,” she replied quietly. She took her hand back to wipe the tears stubbornly forming in her eyes. “You transformed and there wasn’t any of _you_ left. There was no trace of my Basil, of Bill’s Doctor, of Coal Hill’s interim caretaker… and then…” Instead of saying it, she put her hand to her throat and he instantly knew.

“Oh… Clara… I’d never do something like that to you,” he swore. “Don’t be afraid of me and what I will become once I have the full moon hit my skin again; any injury I’ve ever given anyone has been because they were too close as I was thrashing about during a difficult transformation. I’m aware the entire time—I would _never_ knowingly cause you harm.”

“A-Are you sure…?” she asked. He nodded.

“Certainly.”

She gazed into his eyes, the very ones that she saw moments ago in her dream, and took note of the differences. The Basil in her dream had lost all the sparkle, all the life, all the kindness, and yet this one still had those things and more. He picked her up—sleeping bags and all—and placed her back on the bunk, sitting down next to her.

“If you’re not feeling up to being here while I transform again, you’re more than welcome to leave,” he said. Clara shook her head in response.

“I guess it was always at the back of my mind, but it took until now for it to surface,” she admitted. He rested an arm across her shoulders and she leaned into the touch. “I’m sorry—for all the talking we’ve done, that’s a pretty big thing to miss.”

“Something tells me we’re not the talking type,” he shrugged. “Yeah we _talk_ , but big things can be hit-or-miss. I’m sure had we met under different circumstances, we’d part before we ever got the chance to admit our feelings towards one another.”

“Now that would definitely suck.” She couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You sitting alone in your academic tower, pining over what you couldn’t even place you missed, is a silly image.”

“Silly, yes, but terrifyingly possible,” he replied grimly. He gently flattened her hair—now wild from sleep and terror—and tucked a stray strand behind her ear. “I know what I miss from before, but the thought of parting from you without even the hint of what I passed on is enough to make me want to get the TARDIS and whisk you back to Bristol before the school year ends.”

“…the what…?”

“That’s what I call my car, remember?”

She puzzled over that for a moment before it hit her smack in the face. “You mean, you still have that Soviet-era heap of junk that you drove just to piss people off? There hasn’t been a Tardyska made since I was _five_.”

“It is a highly reliable piece of machinery.”

“If my German uni neighbor was correct, you were safer in a _Trabant_ , and those had to be refueled by _pouring petrol directly under the bonnet_. You’re a liar.”

“I accept this as true.”

“Which part? About the Trabant or that you’re a liar?”

“I guess you’re going to have to find out.” He leaned in and kissed her playfully, bringing out a giggle that encouraged him further. Squeezing a breast, he relished the sound she made inside his mouth as she straddled his lap, taking charge in the eventual breaking of their sex moratorium.

Soon there would be nothing to worry about, he thought, for once he was revived, nothing was going to come between them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a quick turn-around from the previous chapter, but I don’t care I’m on a roll.

****

Days crept by slowly.

During daylight, the couple would go hiking around the bothy, taking in the serenity found in the cold shrubland or the ancient trees nearby. When the weather turned for the worse, they would rush inside and warm themselves with a fire, some cocoa, and sex every now and then. They would read while cuddled up and told stories of their own when they couldn’t concentrate on the ones across the pages. It was an enjoyable holiday away from everything, one that they knew didn’t have to be their last.

One evening, a few nights out from the full moon, Clara and Basil were taking a stroll underneath the partial moon and all the stars of the heavens. They wandered around, enjoying the clear and tranquil night around them. By the time they returned to the bothy it was time for what had become an embarrassingly-late dinner, which Basil appeared to prepare for by taking off his clothes soon as Clara was done bolting the door.

“What are you doing…?” she smirked. She watched as he went down to his pants, folding up the rest of his clothes to leave on the bunk.

“I’m going to get us a hare for dinner, since it’s a late one anyhow—I haven’t had a Cairngorms hare in years, and if you like goat, then you might like that.”

“What does that have to do with putting your pants on backwards?” She pointed at him as he shimmied out of the question-mark-laden fabric and, indeed, proceeded to put them back on the wrong way.

“It’s for my tail to go through,” he stated. “I can’t go asking Nardole or Heather for a mend simply because I didn’t have the foresight to turn them around.”

Now _that_ confused Clara. “I thought you couldn’t transform.”

“Not into a full wolf or the Scottie dog you first met, but an in-between. A sort of halfway point, if you will, thanks to the partial moon, and will make things easier on the big night.”

“Oh…” She nodded and sat down, bracing herself for what she was about to see. Instead, Basil knelt down before her and pressed a kiss to her lips.

“I was going to go outside and transform; don’t worry.”

“No, do it here, or else I won’t get used to it. I’m braver than you know.”

“Clearly.”

At that, he stepped back and closed his eyes, concentrating on the task at-hand. Clara gripped the edge of her seat as she watched her fiancé’s skin became covered in hair and his skeletal structure began to change. It was very much like the nightmare she’d had before, except with silly-looking pants and when he did finally open his eyes back up, they were the same ones that had been gazing upon her the entire trip. Those human, youthful, adoring eyes of a light steel-blue comforted her before he turned away and left the bothy.

…and his tail _was_ sticking out the back of his pants, of all things.

Instead of idly sitting around waiting for Basil to return, Clara decided to take an inventory of the food they had left. There was enough for about four more days—five if the hare for that night’s dinner was on the larger end—and it gave her the great satisfaction to know that they had planned their excursion perfectly. She made sure to feed the fire and make sure it was burning brightly, so that not only would there be a warm place for her nearly-starkers Basil to return to, but that it kept the bothy clearly lit in order for her to read and take lesson notes by the light.

It felt as only fifteen or so minutes passed when Clara heard some rustling outside. She paused her note-taking and glanced towards the door, hoping to see Basil walk in at any moment. A knock reached her ears instead, which caused her to put her pencil down and stand.

“Clara…?”

That was _not_ Basil’s voice.

Clara rushed over to the door and opened it wide, confused beyond belief. There, standing in the doorway, was Adrian Davies. He looked filthy and scruffy and as though he hadn’t had a proper sleep or meal in days, yet she could still fully recognize her coworker in the dim light.

“Adrian…?” she marveled. “What are you doing here…?”

“I heard you were coming up this way, and something didn’t feel right about it,” he admitted, almost sheepishly. “I feel like a right tit now that I’m up here, but there was something I couldn’t put my finger on—still can’t—and I needed to hear from _you_ that things are alright.”

“I have been up here nearly a week; how did it take you this long to find me?”

Adrian took a beaten paper map from his pocket and unfolded it to show her. A bunch of tiny circles, lines, scribbles, and x’s covered the map, along with his neat, trim cursive in certain spots. “I looked in every bothy around here at least once… but then I realized that you weren’t _on_ the map, and when I saw the light from the fire peeking out from the cracks in the shutters...”

“Danny did say you worried too much for your own good,” Clara laughed. She hugged him, glad that he was such a caring friend, only for a thought to bring her from the moment. “How did you know that I was here?”

“Mr. Coburn said that you and Mr. Smith were out this way,” he explained. He took his backpack off and set it on the floor before moving towards the fire to warm up. “Why are you out here with _him_? Is he an experienced enough hillwalker and hiker for this terrain? I didn’t think you were into the stuff, and to go out here with someone who doesn’t even…”

“Basil and I are engaged,” she blurted out. She quickly covered her mouth, eyes going wide, as she realized the potential error she just made. Adrian’s eyes nearly bugged at the news, unsure how to process it.

“You two are _what_ …?” He sat on the floor and stared at his friend, completely taken aback. “Since when have the two of you been _engaged_?”

“Recently,” she admitted, sitting next to him. “We’re getting married next autumn, after I move to Bristol in the summer.”

“…and you’re **_getting married_**?! **_Moving_**?! Clara, are you sure about this?”

“Yes, but it’s difficult to explain,” she replied. “Basil and I have a plan—it’s a very good plan—and we know that it makes us much better off than other couples, some of whom have been together for ages. I’m sure you’ll understand soon enough.”

“So then he’s not forcing you into anything?” She shook her head. “It’s not because of some weird fit brought about by the Anniversary?” Another silent denial, after which he blushed slightly before whispering, “Are you pregnant?”

“No,” she laughed loudly. It only made him blush more, his entire face going red. “I appreciate your concern, but we don’t plan on that happening until after we get married.”

“Good,” he nodded. “I’ve been afraid for a while that what happened a year ago changed too much of you permanently. It wasn’t easy burying a good mate before his time, but it was probably harder watching another act not-herself, even if it _was_ because she had a right to be in mourning.”

“ _Shit_ ; you, Danny, Basil… you’re all idiots,” she laughed. She then stood and helped him up, directing him towards the sink. “Wash up there and when you’re done I’ll put on some tea. Basil’s out trapping a hare for dinner and should be back soon.” He nodded and brought her in for a tight hug, knowing that everything was going to be fine.

Suddenly, the door slammed open and Adrian was almost instantly pulled from Clara and shoved up against the wall. Basil had returned, his front covered in hare’s blood as he growled his disdain for the stranger in his bothy. He snarled and barked, snapping his jowls mere inches from Adrian’s face, making the man freeze in terror.

“Basil, stop it!” Clara demanded. She tugged on his left arm, attempting to pull him off their coworker. His muscles, she realized were incredible strong—stronger than he was as a human being. He looked at her, his eyes furious, and she stood her ground. “It’s _Adrian_ , you idiot! Can’t you tell?!”

The werewolf looked back at the man in his grasp and realization kicked in. He let go and slowly stepped back, letting himself shift to his human form as he did so. Before long, Basil was the pasty, thin, greying scruff of a man he normally was, except now with the hare’s blood going from his mouth and unshaven chin down to his belly. Adrian stood against the wall the entire time, his entire body shaking.

“Fuck… what are you…?” he gasped.

“Language,” Basil insisted. He went back towards the still-opened door and picked the twin dead hares up from just outside the threshold. “Is illiteracy _that_ much of a problem amongst the staff of Coal Hill?”

“What…?”

“The sign, _again_ , you pudding-brained nit.” Basil put the game in the sink before grabbing a washcloth to clean himself up. “Clara, you explain; I’m clearly beyond his grasp and you’re used to explaining things to people who need a few passes to understand.”

“Basil…”

“Yes?”

“Apologize to Adrian, **_now_** ,” she demanded.

“The man comes into _my_ bothy, is alone with _my_ fiancée, I have _no_ idea what his intentions are… I think I’m justified.” Now clean, Basil went over to his pile of clothes and dropped his pants to turn them right-side around before dressing again. He had his socks and trousers on before he noticed Adrian was still staring at him. “What is wrong with you? Are you broken?”

“What is wrong with _you_?” Adrian asked breathlessly. “How… what… what just happened?!”

“Basil is a werewolf,” Clara explained. She brought Adrian over towards the sink and found a clean washcloth for him to use to scrub off all the days of being outdoors. “My flat wasn’t broken into—it was my neighbor seeing him during the day.”

Adrian reached a new level of shock, one that Clara hadn’t exactly thought possible from before. “You’re marrying your _dog_?”

“I am going to marry the woman who saved my life,” Basil interrupted. He was pulling his hooded sweatshirt on now, no longer making the other man uncomfortable with his blatant nakedness. “The incident with the police made me want to leave Clara’s care after making certain she was comfortable in her own home again, but we were attacked during a walk and plans changed.”

“…so when did you know he was a… werewolf…?”

“The night the police were in my flat,” Clara replied. “The walk we went on was very late, and I dragged him back home after being attacked by a snake-cat-thing. He reverted to a human form right on my kitchen floor.”

“I still feel like I’m missing a _lot_ of information,” Adrian said.

“Which is none of your business,” Basil said. “Now what are you doing here and how did you find us, coblynau?”

“Just because I’m from St. Asaph doesn’t mean you can call me by any Welsh spook’s name!”

“It’s in your _blood_ , **_boyo_** ,” Basil stated. “Plenty of non-assuming, otherwise useless, human beings have ancestry that involves a preternatural creature or three. In some circles it was considered a miraculous feat if the offspring of such unions kept the magic abilities more than a generation out, and those people were coveted as tragic figures in society.”

“That sounds… highly unlikely.”

“It’s one of my many areas of study, the history of the magic folks and their marginalization as humankind rose to prominence. One can say that it’s an excellent local example of the Scots, Welsh, and Irish peoples being the oppressors and colonizers of one subset of people while being oppressed and colonized themselves.”

“You’re mad.”

“…and you just watched me transform from a non-human state into this one,” Basil motioned at himself, “only to stand there wetting yourself while fighting the urge your brain has to dismiss what you just saw as nonsense. We’re out here for a reason, and that reason is that I need space when the full moon finally hits me, or else things would be apt to go _viral_.”

Clara gently backhanded Basil’s arm as she went and brought Adrian back towards the table, having him sit down in one of the chairs. Whilst the werewolf dressed and cooked his kill, his fiancée explained all that was left to tell their coworker, attempting to keep him calm and collected. They ate dinner together before turning in, with Basil stripping again so that he could turn into his half-wolf form and lay on the ground as a warm pillow for Clara so that Adrian could take the bunk.

It was quiet as the three went to sleep in the dimming light of the fire, with not a one knowing what was coming their way… something that would make Adrian’s paradigm-upending revelations pale in comparison.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to mention that both Adrian and Basil have full beards going at this point in the story. So a knock-off Eleven and Twelve. With beards. Please utilize this information well.

Morning came and the trio decided to wander around the nearby wood in order to search for more firewood. Three trips and a nice pile in the bothy later and Clara and Adrian went out for an extra walk, leaving Basil to double-check some bits of the ward that was around their temporary home and seeing what he could do to patch and strengthen it. The two brought a thermos and snacks with them, taking a rest on the edge of an outcrop of rocks when the sun was at its highest.

“Could you imagine chaperoning a class trip out his way?” Adrian mused, staring off into the distance as he mulled over his tea. Clara shook her head with a chuckle.

“They’d have all run away before they got on the bus to the park limits, and by now would’ve broken off and formed their own independent state where they dab to salute and have outlawed mandatory literature courses.”

“Sounds like we’d be out of our jobs in such a bleak world.”

“Maybe; maybe we’d just be the lucky ones.” She handed him an apple and procured one of her own from the pack she had been carrying. Taking a bite, she watched as a few backpackers traversed the landscape before them in the distance. “Isn’t it funny what difference a year makes?”

“This time last year you were barely back at Coal Hill after Danny’s accident, and this time next year…”

“…I will be a bride in Bristol, with a new life spread out ahead of me. All new students, neighbors, coworkers… it will be like another adventure.” She took his silent offer of more tea from the thermos and sighed. “You will visit, won’t you?”

“I will if you will,” he replied.

“Of course; the kids will need an uncle figure and I highly doubt Basil’s secretary would be a good match—the man has all the pleasantries of a hand pie with a soggy crust and not enough filling.”

“That bad?”

“He’s a faun, apparently.” Adrian spat out his tea and pounded his chest with his fist, attempting to not choke on the rest. “I’m not entirely sure I believe it myself—he didn’t seem particularly goat-like.”

“You’ve met him? When?”

“Before Basil began working at Coal Hill—he brought over his stuff. It’s why you haven’t seen him wandering around in Danny’s old things.”

“Ah,” Adrian coughed. He took a wee sip of tea, careful to soothe his throat and not aggravate it again, before putting his cup down on the rock next to him. Shading his eyes with his hand, he squinted as he tried to see something far away. “Are those people getting closer?”

Clara turned her attention off towards the other hikers and frowned. “Yes, and it doesn’t look like they’re normal hillwalkers either.”

They waited in silence as the people came closer, with realization hitting both the friends at the same time: they were park rangers—or whatever it was the Cairngorms area in general had—and they were specifically coming right towards them.

“Shit—act normal,” Clara muttered. She took a sandwich from her bag (made with the very last of their bread, meaning that she was ready to hike back to the nearest village just for that) and pretended to not know what was going on. Adrian followed suit and before long they were approached by a trio of park rangers, all three women looking very tired and cross.

“Pardon me, but you two better get out of here while you have the chance,” the shortest of the rangers said. She seemed as though she was the leader of the group, with the other two merely hanging back a couple steps each. “We’re doing a sweep of the area; it’s not safe.”

“Not safe?” Adrian wondered. “What do you mean?”

“There’s been reports of wolves,” Tallest replied. “We were unable to confirm anything until early this morning, but there are definite wolf tracks, as well as tracks from a large, unknown animal running about. While we go around examining the tracks, we’re letting people know so that they can leave before nightfall.”

“Yes; if you need it, we can call a coworker that’s going around with a quad bike and a trailer picking up hikers,” Shortest said. “We cannot kick you out, but we can heavily suggest that you leave before things potentially get dangerous.”

“Potentially?” Clara asked. “Before it wasn’t safe, now it’s only ‘potentially’. Which is it?”

“We’re literature teachers; we put stock in the meaning of words,” Adrian explained, seeing that the rangers were a bit put-off. The middle-heighted woman stepped forward, holding her mobile out for them to see.

“These are some of the scenes we’ve been finding in the park,” she said, voice soft and accent broad. She cycled through a bunch of photos, with the bloody, mangled bodies of foxes, squirrels, and even large deer, all accompanied by oddly-shaped footprints in the dirt. “It’s not eagles or owls that are doing this, and this is more than what competitive foxes and wildcats are normally capable of doing. We don’t know which animals are causing these things, nor why, and we’d rather people leave before it’s their body we’re taking photos of.”

“Why are we talking about photos of bodies?” Everyone was torn from the conversation and looked to see that Basil was walking up to them, a curious look on his face. He greeted Clara with a quick kiss and examined the photo on Middle’s mobile.

“The three of you are in the same party?” Shortest asked.

“My sister’s fiancée,” Adrian cut in, motioning towards Basil. Both his coworkers gave him a quick glance—they heard and were ready to play along. “You know, just a family holiday during a bit where we could all take off work. Is it that weird?”

“No, not really,” Shortest said. She watched Basil hand her coworker her mobile back, looking at him critically. “Why weren’t you with them before?”

“I let them go ahead as I finished sorting the burnables and took a lengthy, private dump, thank you,” he said. The other park rangers stifled a snicker, along with Clara and Adrian, as Shortest attempted to not cringe in embarrassment. “If they’ve been siblings this long and haven’t murdered one another and left the body to rot in the middle of nowhere, I’m fairly safe in assuming they won’t do it _now_.”

“Alright…” Shortest said, unsure of the rather frank admissions. “Try to be out of the area by dark. If you can’t make it, then at least don’t stray too far from your shelter at night and do your hiking as a group. Until we know what it is that’s out there, we are going to be as cautious as possible—two hundred fifty years is a long time to not have carnivores wandering around and this needs to be properly documented.”

“Then I’d suggest you get back to work before the sun sets on you three,” Basil said. He waved sarcastically as the park rangers left, waiting until they were far from earshot before turning towards his fiancée and their coworker. “They know something’s wrong, but they’re not certain who or what to blame it on. The leader-one is especially attempting to find an answer and I get the feeling she suspects me.”

“Not shit, Sherlock,” Clara deadpanned. “You saw those photos—what’s out there?”

“It seems more consistent with a large cat, more of a tiger-large, but I doubt it was, as I didn’t think there was a zoo nearby with any wild-caught…” Basil trailed off, gnawing on his pointer finger as he worried over an answer. He then slowly furrowed his brow, his concerned stare hardening into a glare that he directed towards Adrian. “ _You_.”

“What about me?”

“You led them here.”

“I led _who_ here? I don’t understand.”

“The _conceit of pards_ , you idiot!” Basil snapped. “Why would an escaped animal that had been bred in captivity kill for fun? Who would be stupid enough to release a large predatory creature in the Cairngorms without clearing it with the National Trust and the rangers who work these lands? No—these creatures were led here.”

“I didn’t even know what a pard was until Clara explained it last night!” Adrian defended. “For all you know they followed _you_ up!”

“I would have smelled them had they followed us.”

“With that beaky thing? I’ll believe it when I see it, ol—”

“STOP!” Clara shouted. Both men looked at her and recoiled slightly at her furious expression. “Let’s just pack up and get back to the bothy and finish up the arguing _there_. The longer we’re out here, the more likely it is that we’ll be attacked, and I’m not going to die from a pard attack just because you two have your knickers in a twist.”

Agreeing to that, Basil and Adrian helped pick up the rest of the picnic and rush towards the bothy fast as they could without causing suspicion from anyone possibly watching from far off. They made it back to the bothy without incident, though after the door was shut the peace vanished and Basil had Adrian by the scruff of his neck again, holding him against the wall.

“Basil!” Clara snapped. “What is _wrong_ with you!?”

“Nothing,” he growled, an undertone of the wolf inside tainting his voice. “All I want is to make sure that you are safe, Clara, and now this is twice in twenty-four hours where I’ve found my doubts lay on the same person.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Adrian said. “Strength in numbers, yeah? You might not need me around as much as I need you, but you still need me if you want to have a better chance of scaring away those pards.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Basil snarled. He let Adrian go, though did not step away. “Pards are not afraid of humanoids; the only reason they do things at night is because it is more convenient—therefore easier—for them to cause mischief.”

“Killing a bunch of animals for fun is not just ‘ _mischief_ ’.”

“It is when you don’t know any better.” Basil glanced over at Clara, who was still looking rather upset with them both. “We’ll get out of this, don’t worry.”

“It wasn’t just pard prints out there,” she mentioned. “The rangers said there were _wolf_ _prints_ as well. Care to explain that?”

“Pards have evolved to mimic other animals’ footprints as part of its camouflage—it would not surprise me if one conceit left more cat-like prints and another nearly canid in appearance.”

“That sounds like a lot of talk from someone who we just have to take their word for it,” Adrian mentioned. He nearly continued, yet stopped when Basil directed his sharp glare back towards him, making him silent again.

“We need to be on our guard, coblynau, because we’re now in a large heap of danger and I’m the _only_ one who can effectively get us out without much incident,” Basil stated. “Now are you going to shut up and listen, or are you—”

Suddenly, a large thud against the door cut the werewolf off, making all three of the bothy’s occupants jump in surprise. The locked shutters rattled as well, the noise enough to make Basil push Adrian towards Clara before stepping between the both of them and the door, ready to make a stand.

“In broad daylight,” he snarled. Basil took off his sweatshirt, coat, socks and shoes as the noise continued, using the opportunity allow his body to slip into the hybrid form from the night before. He barked at the door and shutters, letting whomever was outside know that he meant business.

What met him was a deafening chorus of roaring, with there being at least five or six pards outside the bothy, waiting for them to leave. Basil howled angrily, a loud and long proclamation that he was not going to be intimidated. Admit he was scared? Of course, if the admittance were to Clara. To tell the pards he was bested by them? Not a chance in all of Hell.

The conceit left as Basil howled, scampering off with near-instant speed. He then allowed himself to become human once again, picking up his clothes discarded to accommodate his partial wolf form, and sitting down on one of the chairs wearily.

“They know where we are,” he said quietly. “They know, and they’ve been out in the daylight. Nothing is going to frighten them away.”

“All they’re doing is acting like a bunch of bullies,” Clara said. She went to her fiancée’s side and put her arm around his shoulders. “Don’t you worry—they’ll have to get through me first before they even can _think_ of getting to you.”

“Same here,” Adrian added. He was still shaking from the fright, even though he seemed more resolute than ever. “One of my best mates is going to marry you and while I may not like it, I respect that you’re the one she loves. I might get used to you, in time, but you need to be around for more than a few weeks for that to happen, and you might not be around for more than a few _days_ without help from the both of us.”

“Good,” Basil said while pulling on a boot. “It’s time for us to go into survival mode.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A more overarching meta note: with the posting of this chapter, I have surpassed one million words here on AO3! Thanks for the support everyone, and here's to a million more! If you keep it up, you can bet I will as well!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the bad news is that I failed to finish this before my Halloween deadline. The good (?) news is that we only have one more chapter after this! The news-news is that this chapter contains some gory descriptions, so please be careful if you read fic while eating or something similar.

Starting that night, Basil, Clara, and Adrian bounced ideas off of one another as to their plan on how to survive the next couple of days and nights before the full moon brought the werewolf back to his full strength. There were no further sign of the pards outside the bothy for the remainder of the night, and the trio was able to steal a handful of hours of sleep between them. All they needed was to make it to the full moon and allow Basil half an hour under a clear sky; if it wasn’t going to come this next cycle, then Clara and Adrian were going to head for the nearby village during the daytime, leaving Basil to his devices until he was either dead or transformed. As much as they wanted to deny it, there was no other way, let alone a safer option.

They were going to leave together, or one of them was likely to die there, another supposed victim of the Cairngorms’ weather, corpse gone over by carrion-seekers.

The following day passed laboriously slow, punctuated by quick naps and group outings to use nature’s toilet. Night came and only proved to be as aggravatingly tense as the daytime had been. The conceit of pards had prowled outside the bothy until the new day faded the overcast sky from coal-black to a well-washed grey, leaving the occupants’ nerves beyond frayed and their wits nearly at their ends.

“This is it,” Basil muttered, peeking out one of the shutters. It was around noon, with a light drizzle falling outside from the thin clouds above. “If I can catch a break in the weather tonight, then I can take care of these pests.”

“How are we going to get out though?” Adrian wondered. “They’re on our door by twilight.”

“Pack,” Basil ordered in reply. Adrian glanced over at Clara, who was making tea for their thermoses, having decided that their attempts were unlikely to be up to her standard.

“He means, we’re going to leave before the sun sets, letting them think that we haven’t left yet,” she translated. “If we do at least that, then we might have a chance of confusing them long enough to get Basil the proper moonbathing session he needs.”

“…and where will we hide?”

“In the forest, until we can get some bearings,” Basil replied. “Fast as they are, pards still slow down when avoiding trees and other bits of terrain, just like any other animal, and I plan on using that to our advantage. They might be fast in open land, but they’re downright clumsy in a forest.”

“There’s a big problem though,” Adrian frowned. “They can track you, yeah? Take one step outside and you will be pretty much laying down a trail of paint for them to follow.”

“Not exactly…” Basil glanced over at Adrian and smiled, making the younger man swallow uncomfortably—that was not a smile to be fond of, no matter the situation.

* * *

A couple hours later and the bothy was ready to be closed up for the time being. The fire was put out, the inside tidied, the compost buried, and everything to be taken away fit snugly inside the packs Clara carried with her outside. She put them down and began to fiddle with the keys, making it so that she was the one closing up the bothy.

She was the one closing, because Basil was being carried on Adrian’s back, feet high enough in the air to not brush against any grasses or rocks. One of his ankles was in a false splint, making it look less suspicious in case they ran into the park rangers again. Clara led the two of them along as she took lead of the party and they began to head towards what they hoped was safety.

Every so often they would stop to rest, which meant that every so often Basil put on a show over his ankle as he was placed down on a rock by Adrian. They had left a disconnected-enough path for Basil to feel comfortable walking on his own once they were within the forest, a welcome thing for the younger man’s already weary back, and they quickly went to work on finding a small clearing to occupy. It was nearly twilight when they found the perfect place, one where Basil could climb a tree and potentially regain his strength in safety. They ate their dinner—granola bars meant to replace a meal yet still not anywhere near filling—and began their wait on the low, thick branches of a tree just beyond the edge of the glen, with their packs tied up high in another one to keep them out of the way.

“Basil? Do you turn into a wolf or just the dog and horror film effect?” Adrian asked idly.  The silence they were otherwise finding themselves in was driving him mad, though Basil shrugged from his spot on a slightly higher branch.

“All three, though that’s not important,” he said. “Just keep listening for the pards.”

“Will we even hear them?”

“Boys, hush,” Clara said, holding up her hand to silence them. There was a soft rustling noise from underneath them, which she carefully looked for the perpetrator. A wild boar made its way out of a clump of shrubs and began to snuffle its way around the glen, allowing the humans sitting in the tree to breathe again.

“I still wouldn’t relax,” Basil warned, tone hushed. “There might be others, and they might be bigger; stay in the tree.”

“Don’t you have some moonlight to catch?”

“It’s fairly difficult to do while there are clouds in the way…!”

Another quick rustling of leaves and suddenly the boar squealed in pain. It was driven quiet by its neck being broken with a swift chomp, its killer then leaning its head back and letting out a long, low roar.

A pard had caught dinner.

Soon, five other pards were in the glen, feasting on the boar. With their dark coats covered in speckles of varying colors, the creatures looked strange enough to be unsettling, yet familiar enough to justify thinking they were another large cat at first glance. The smell of blood and entrails filled the air, making the two humans struggle to control their reflex to vomit in disgust. Thinking quickly, Basil plucked a large pinecone from the branch above him and tossed it as far as he could, landing out of sight and making several thuds that jarred the pards from their meal. With one of their own dragging the rest of their dinner along, the conceit trotted off in the direction of the pinecone’s landing, ready to investigate yet not ready to potentially leave their dinner for another to steal.

Long and dread-filled moments passed; the sounds of the forest at night seemed amplified by fear, making every single second drag on laboriously. The humans barely dared to breathe, both nearly falling off their tree branch in fright when Basil hopped to the ground. He ushered them down and they followed.

“It’s not safe here anymore,” he whispered, tone hushed as he attempted to quickly shed his clothes. “Adrian, make good on your promise and help Clara get out of here and back to the bothy.”

“What about you?” Clara asked. “What are you going to do?”

“The clouds are thinning; it won’t take long for the moon to come out and regenerate my abilities to their full capacity. It’s _me_ the pards want, not either of you, and the more convoluted a path I can take them on out here, the better off all three of us will be.”

“You sure they’ll go after you?” Adrian asked uncertainly. Basil nodded in response.

“They’re not capable of the thought of hurting you two to anger me—they want the big prize and as long as you’re not with me, then you’ll be safe.”

“Our stuff’s still in the tree though,” Clara mentioned.

“You have the keys,” Basil reasoned. “Stay the bothy where you’re out of the cold and wind and come back after it’s light out.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Clara, we should do as he says…”

“I am _not_ abandoning him!”

“It’s not abandonment if he tells you to go!”

“Don’t make this the last time I see you alive,” Clara ordered Basil. He replied by deeply kissing her, not giving a promise that he would live, but declaring all that needed to be said, yet would likely remain so until the end of their days.

**_I love you._ **

“Shit! Look out!”

In a flash, Basil had transformed into his half-wolf form and pushed Adrian so that he sandwiched Clara between himself and a tree. She could poke her head out from behind his arm to see that the conceit was back, all of the pards on the other side of the glen and ready to fight. Their muzzles were covered in boar’s blood as they growled at their long-traveled prey; he growled back, barking territorially. They were in his space and he had done nothing but exist, as if they cared about such things as reasoning and logic. It did not matter that the humans were under his protection, or that one was his mate, or that none of them even had the same prey upon which they regularly ate and therefore did not directly compete.

All they knew was that there was a werewolf in front of them and that werewolves were not friends of pard-kind.

Two pards leapt forward, going faster than Clara and Adrian had ever seen a cat move before, initiating the fight. Basil threw himself into the fray, meeting them partway through the glen. His trousers and t-shirt were still on, getting almost instantly torn by claws and shred by teeth. Barking and growling, hissing and spitting, snarling and snapping—it was the werewolf against two pards at first, then a third jumped in, the fourth, and before long all six pards tearing at Basil with no restrain in their might and fury.

From her vantage point just behind Adrian’s arm, Clara’s eyes went wide as she watched in horror, not knowing what to do to help. This wasn’t a faerie story—not a cute one, anyhow—and the man that would have filled her role of knight in shining armor was the one shrugging off being _mauled_ by six of the largest cats she’d ever seen. There wasn’t even a chance in all of hell that **_she_** could become Basil’s savior, as she had nothing that could combat claws and deter teeth. The man that had taken her heart and given her his own was laying down his life for hers.

As the attack wore on, one of the pards stopped attempting to rip Basil’s arm out and turned its attention to Clara and Adrian. Its fierce eyes bore into the humans, emitting a long, low, purr of delight as it began to slink towards them, not caring that it was bleeding from its face and haunches.

“D-D-Don’t do it!” Adrian warned. He was shaking as he stepped backwards, pressing Clara further into the tree trunk. “I’m warning you…! No closer…!”

Suddenly, the pards all stopped and raised their heads in unison, each one looking to the north. They then ran off, their tails in a low, submissive curl, reaching close to their top speeds in moments. Clara pushed Adrian away from her and ran from the tree into the main of the glen. She fell to her knees at Basil’s side, putting his head and shoulders in her lap so that he was no longer completely laying on the cold ground. He had bite and claw marks all over, oozing fluids worse than the night he transformed on Clara’s kitchen floor. She could see that a section of his left quadriceps muscle had been detached from the rest, blood freely flowing from the wound and staining the grass beneath them. There was even a wound that she tried hiding with his tattered t-shirt, for she didn’t want to see that the pards were ready to begin feasting again. He didn’t have long; his eyes were unfocused and the pulse at his wrist weak as she held his hand. She allowed him to shakily bring her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her skin in farewell. Tears began to run down her cheeks, as she watched him struggle to even breathe, their silent damnation only diminished by Adrian’s startled gasp.

“What the hell is **_that_**?!”

Clara looked up and saw a shadowy figure by the trees. Her own breathing became shallow as it slowly came closer and revealed itself: a unicorn. It had dark green hair that was filthy and matted, open sores all over its body, and a mane that hung in a tangled mess containing dead leaves, lichen, and twigs. Blood dripped from a sharp, splintered horn and was spattered across its forehead and mouth, dripping down to its chest, legs, and even its hooves, all four of which were unevenly split and bloody from lack of proper care.

“Keep away!” she shouted was it walked towards them. “Please! Let him die in peace! Hasn’t he had enough of you creatures?!”

“Uh, Clara, should you be shouting at that…?” Adrian asked. He crouched as he walked towards his friends, ready to make a leap if necessary.

“I don’t bloody well care anymore,” she snapped, choking back tears. Staring down the creature, she snarled as it stepped ever closer, “If you _dare_ hurt him, I don’t care what kind of myths exist about the misfortunes involved in killing one of you— ** _I’ll do it_**. I know you understand me—don’t you even pretend to not understand.”

The unicorn stopped a few yards away and stared at the two humans and the dying werewolf. It snorted and scratched the ground with one of its front hooves. As the clouds in the sky shifted and allowed the moon to shine through, the creature reared on its hind legs and emitted a screeching, grinding, groaning sort of sound that made Clara and Adrian both shut their eyes in a wince while clapping their hands over their ears. It gradually turned into a horse’s whinny, at which the humans looked again—the light reflecting off the moon had fully illuminated the creature, turning it into a silvery-white, majestic equine more appropriate for the legends of old.

Clara watched carefully as the unicorn continued to walk towards her and Basil, ready to pull him away at any moment. The unicorn bent down and nudged Basil with its nose—nothing.

“He’s dying,” she repeated. “The pards… they… they…”

The unicorn shifted its head awkwardly and put its horn to Basil’s chest, right above his heart. It slowly pressed the tip of the horn against his body and put distinct pressure on the area. The horn began to glow softly as moonlight continued to bathe them all, confusing the two humans beyond their own comprehension. Basil’s labored breathing evened out and eventually shallowed to the point of nothingness. Pulling away, the unicorn’s horn dulled until it was no longer glowing, nudging Clara’s cheek with its nose.

“Thank you,” she replied. She felt Adrian kneel down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder, giving her the support he had already offered once over a year ago. “I think it stopped his suffering. He _can_ die in peace now.” She sniffled at the admission, not wanting to say too much more aloud.

“We’ll figure out how to find the park rangers in the morning,” Adrian said. The clouds closed and the unicorn was once again the horrid monster from a gothic teen’s nightmare, now emanating a stink that washed over the two of them in a putrid haze. It slowly walked away; there was no more work to be done.

As Clara sat cradling Basil’s still form and Adrian worked on getting their packs from the tree, the sky again began to shift and clear. Moonlight bathed them once more, making the human woman curse to herself as she held her fiancé—another man she dared to love—and closed her eyes. Had it been there an hour beforehand, they might have possibly avoided all of this…

…or, so it would have seemed at first.

“Clara…?” Adrian’s voice sounded weak, as though he had seen his third great fright of the night, yet was still attempting to process the first.

“Leave me alone,” she replied.

“No, Clara, _look_.”

Opening her eyes, Clara saw that Basil’s body was beginning to glow. Radiating out from the point where the unicorn’s horn had poked him, the soft and pale golden light soon covered his entire body, erasing gouges, setting bones, sewing muscle and sinew back together, allowing him to become whole again. His breathing became more robust and, as the final bit of light retreated towards his heart, his eyelids fluttered open.

“C-Cla-Clara…?”

Sobbing again, Clara hugged her fiancé tightly as she cried into his shoulder. She allowed herself the moment of hysterical weakness, for if the roles were reversed, would anyone blame them? Not at all; even if they did, she would make them eat their mockery in shame. Hysterics were nothing but right for the moment, for her emotions were too great to be constrained. Basil, on the other hand, silently held Clara as he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head—he was _alive_.

“Incredible,” Adrian marveled. He dropped the pack he was holding and staggered over towards his coworkers, mind positively boggled. “You didn’t die.”

“What happened?” Basil asked. “Don’t let your brain turn to pudding _now_ ; how am I still here?”

“A unicorn, I think,” the younger man replied. “At least, it was a unicorn under the moon—I don’t know what it was when the clouds were blocking the light.”

Basil then glanced down towards his chest and touched the spot right above his heart. “Alicorn…? Really…?”

“What?” Clara sniffled. She moved the tattered shirt aside and saw a small dent in his skin where the horn had been.

“Alicorn: the horn of a unicorn, where much of its magical properties are released due to being exposed bone, therefore an excellent conduit of fairy talents,” he explained. “Narwhal tusks were sold for centuries with the claim that they were the famed and genuine article, leading to overhunting and many poisonings brought from haughty braggarts’ faulty goblets. Very few examples of the real deal have made their way around the normal human world, and even those were unable to cure ailments and prevent deaths the way the rumors claimed.”

“…was it because the unicorn wasn’t alive…?” Adrian asked.

“Fatal flaws involve more than the death of those who possess said flaw,” Basil nodded. He stood and helped Clara get to her feet as well. “A unicorn doesn’t help just anyone… you… you must have summoned it… asked for it to help…”

“Do I have to mention that I don’t precisely meet the requirements anymore and haven’t for more than a few years now?” she muttered. Clara leaned into Basil as she stood, knees still wobbly from the shock of watching him go to and return from the brink of death in the span of a few minutes.

“Virginity has nothing to do with it,” he replied bluntly. “It all has to do with the quality of one’s heart and soul, that they are not asking for the unicorn’s cooperation and help only to squander it, and the misconception came around when it appeared that the virgins those doddering old fools threw out in sacrifice were so terrified for their lives that there was no way they could think about anything else other than asking it to allow them to live. It’s a simple enough—”

Basil was cut off by Clara pulling him down by the collar and kissing him, occupying his mouth with hers instead of rambling on about this thing and that. She had him back and although she was incredibly turned on by his cleverness, she also needed him to shut up that very instant.

They had too much company for her to allow him to talk her into horniness, after all.

The three trudged themselves back to the bothy under the moonlit sky, Adrian taking the bunk again, with Clara snuggled into the half-wolf Basil on the floor, all getting the best rest they’d had in weeks.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, the last one! Thanks for reading, everyone, and be sure to not only look out for new stuff from me, but take the time to read some of my other Doctor Who fics if you're in the mood. There's a ton!

Waking up the following morning was blissful and serene more than anything else for the occupants of the small, hillside bothy. Clara woke to the soft, steady breathing of Basil in his large half-wolf form, warm and furry and definitely alive. She kept smiling until he woke, waiting for him to change back into a human form before kissing him tenderly, making good—if tame—use of their time alone before their temporary roommate was awake as well.

Heading back down to London, however, was an affair that needed to be done with caution despite the renewed strength the werewolf found himself possessing. In the end, Clara and Basil decided to go separately from Adrian, attempting to draw less attention to themselves as a group. They took buses in different directions, with the couple heading towards Glasgow while their friend went to Aberdeen first, then Edinburgh. All three found that their mobile signals returning meant that their inboxes were flooded with unread messages that were mostly of some form of urgency. Some texts were sent (“sorry but I honestly did not get this until now thanks to a hiking trip”), calls were made (“I told you I was bringing him back”), and a long list of emails waded through that were a combination of junk, coworkers harping on one another, and worried students and parents wondering when it was their schedules could resume their prior normalcy. By the time they were all in London again, Mr. Coburn had been able to get the go-ahead from the police and contractors cleaning up to begin using most of the school again in an attempt to salvage what was left of the term.

“Your classroom is going to have to be wherever we can find room while others are on their lunch break, Miss Oswald,” the headmaster explained the day before school resumed. They were in his office, which had suffered no damage aside from a busted door that was already put back on its hinges. “Since it was one of the worst hit, the contractors put it aside as their project for when we’re closed for the holidays and concentrated on finishing as much of the other rooms as they could.”

“No word yet on if they caught the people responsible?”

“Not a peep, but I’m sure we’ll hear once things make progress. In the meantime, I’d like for the entire staff to administer no exams, only one paper to write if necessary—make the students feel like it is worth their time to show up now and we can concentrate on getting them back to where they should be next term.”

Clara nodded at that, glad that her boss was none the wiser when it came to what she had gotten up to while everyone was away. She knew that Adrian was in his classroom, getting it back in order, while Basil was figuring out what was left of the caretaker’s workshop that was still there and useable. They were ready to begin picking up the pieces that would lead them down a better path. She got the list of classrooms allotted to her during certain times and went into the staff lounge to begin writing the notification emails that were to direct her students to where they needed to go once class was back in session. With her curriculum for the following term now in shambles and in need of a revamping, she put in earbud-headphones and got straight to work—not even sharing a building with Basil was going to distract her.

Her patience was tested when he came in to empty the trash bins though. It was positively a crime to make a caretaker’s coat look that sexy.

* * *

School resumed at Coal Hill, students and staff alike feeling as though they had just returned from an oddly-timed holiday. It did not take long for things to get back into motion, let alone for mischief to crop up from the more usual suspects.

“It’s only dry-erase marker; I’m not Banksy and working in spray-paints,” Courtney defended coolly. She was faced with the door-window she was accused of defiling, a bold “Ozzie loves the Scottie” scrawled across in red ink and her scrawl. Mr. Coburn was there and they were even keeping class from starting, which the rest of the students found more than agreeable.

“So you admit this was you,” Clara frowned. She motioned towards the glass in the classroom door, her voice filled with exasperation. “Why did you do this, Courtney?”

“You don’t allow mobiles during school hours, so how else can I get a message out there?” The rest of the class snickered in response, seeing their teacher’s eye twitch in a subconscious tell.

“You’re not the school crier, so stop acting like it,” Clara said. “Why did you even write that, anyhow?”

“…because you’re shacked up with the substitute caretaker, Miss. People need to know so that they don’t interrupt you and walk in on you kissing or something.”

“I think that’s enough, Miss Woods,” Mr. Coburn said. “I think writing some lines about telling lies in the main office will do you some good.”

“It’s not a lie though,” Courtney said resolutely. “I saw them having a snog in the caretaker’s office before the school was broken into, and since we’ve been back I heard them talk about one another as ‘us’ when talking about Christmas. One of my favorite teachers is leaving at the end of term and you just want me to be _quiet_ about it?”

Clara’s face turned pale and her eyes went wide. She could see the sea of giggling students in front of her and the utterly confused Mr. Coburn out of the corner of her eye. After taking a deep breath, she calmly approached Courtney and leaned so that she was closer to her ear, dropping her voice so that only the two of them could hear.

“Don’t you _ever_ mark up the school like that again, do you understand?”

“Especially if it’s about you, Miss?”

“Don’t. Mark. Up. The. School. Period. What uni would want to accept a student whose most remarkable trait is that they’re too concentrated with destroying the building grounds to actually bother with attending class and broadening their mind? _Then_ how would you become President?”

Courtney nodded silently at that, quickly took the cloth Mr. Coburn was holding, wiped off her graffiti, and returned it before sitting back down at her desk. The rest of the class was now staring at her in terror—whatever their classmate had been told, it _worked_ , and they didn’t want to be on the receiving end themselves.

“When I come back in this room, everybody better be able to participate in a discussion on Stephen Gordon’s childhood and the differences between her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her father,” Clara announced. She then walked out into the corridor to talk with Mr. Coburn, leaving all the students to open their books and frantically reread the passages they failed to do during their extended and unexpected holiday.

“Are you still sure you want them to read that book?” Mr. Coburn wondered distractedly.

“None of the parents have objected so far, and the book helps give the students a chance to put things they think of as modern issues into historical contexts, showing them a broader interpretation of history and society, as well as how differing views on multiple subjects have developed over the course of time. It’s not like ‘ _The Well of Loneliness_ ’ is explicit or anything…”

“That’s not the poin—wait—that wasn’t even why I came here to talk to you.” Mr. Coburn shook himself from the distraction and attempted to not devolve into hysterics. “Since when have you been snogging Mr. Smith on school grounds?! Since when have you been _leaving at the end of term_?!”

“Basil and I have a relationship outside of school and it has developed into one that will involve us getting married,” Clara explained frankly. “I don’t know what sort of things Miss Woods has been seeing or hearing, since _I’ve_ been behaving, but I plan on leaving at the end of _next term_ for Bristol. My tenure doesn’t hold a candle to his, he’s not ready to be a pensioner, and can you imagine giving up being a _dean of faculty_ to go on a fresh-hire’s budget? It makes no sense.”

“When _were you_ going to tell me?”

“At the end of this term; honest.”

“…fine,” Mr. Coburn sighed. He shook his head slightly, not entirely certain how to react further. “You’re one of my best instructors, I hope you know.”

“You’ll find someone else,” said a voice. Mr. Coburn jumped and saw Basil walk out from behind him, planting a quick kiss on Clara’s lips as he stood by her side. “By the look of that door earlier, I take it that the school has heard the wolf’s howl?”

“Go tidy your office,” she replied, not breaking her gaze with Mr. Coburn. She patted her fiancé on his rear, with him afterwards giving her boss a smug look and sauntering off, pleased that they were now able to be openly affectionate. “You know I adore the students here, but I _love_ Basil. The clean break will be good for me in the long-run—didn’t you want me to put out my CV a few months after Mr. Pink died?”

“It seemed like a good thing to say at the time…”

“…and it’s a good thing now. We can talk about it later; better not let the kids get too prepared.” Clara then went into her classroom and shut the door behind her, leaning on the surface before stepping towards her desk with all her students’ eyes on her. She noticed that Courtney had her hand raised slightly, prompting her to point at the teen. “Yes?”

“Do I still need to write lines, Miss?”

“Not if you can tell me which one of Stephen Gordon’s parents is the most open-minded, with three examples why.”

* * *

Christmas came and Clara and Basil began to put their over month of planning into action. They went from her flat to his house, plotting their frantic incoming summer on the train to Bristol and on the car ride up to Blackpool. The sight of Basil’s beaten TARDIS pulling up the drive was a sight that made Clara’s father raise an eyebrow and her stepmother scowl, especially when she saw who was in the driver’s seat.

“Your first car, I take it?” Linda asked of the TARDIS once they were all inside.

“My _only_ car—a man doesn’t choose to own a Tardyska, but instead the Tardyska chooses him. It takes effort and skill to keep a Type 40 in this good of condition, I hope you know.”

“Congratulations, Clara,” Linda said flatly. “Your boyfriend’s car is almost as old as you and he’s not getting rid of it for something safer anytime soon. You must be so proud.”

“ _Linda_ …”

“ _David_ , when I said she should go out and get herself someone like you, I didn’t mean someone **_our age_**.”

“…but you’re a teacher too, right Basil?” Dave asked, attempting to recall the conversation he had with Clara about her new beau only days beforehand. “Teachers don’t necessarily make all that much and…”

“Thanks for trying to help, Dad, but Basil is Dean of Faculty at his university,” Clara said. She patted her father’s arm and smiled in resignation; this was her fate and she didn’t like it, but accepted it as such, for bravery in the face of her father’s wife was work just short of deserving a medal for distinguished civilian service (or that was at least how it felt). “He can afford another car if that’s what he wants, but it’s not important.”

“Then what is?” Linda asked. Basil shrugged jokingly and picked up the suitcases that had been sitting by the front door from the moment they entered the house.

“Making sure that your stepdaughter is so thoroughly pregnant by the New Year that even _you_ can’t argue a marriage during the Spring,” he grinned. With Dave’s face turning red and Linda’s adopting a rather statuesque look of shock, Clara pulled Basil along by the ear as she went up the stairs towards her old room.

“Are you going to be like this the entire trip?” she snapped. She let go of his ear and opened her bedroom door—the room smelled as though it had been aired out recently, though sitting on the bed revealed that the bedspread was still more than a bit musty.

“Simply making my intentions clear from the start,” he said. After putting down the bags at the end of the bed, he held her from behind, leaning down to kiss her neck as he pressed himself against her. “I plan on us having the finest litter this side of the Channel, I hope you know.”

“Don’t say litter.”

“I’m a wolf, remember?” He gently nibbled on her skin, not enough to leave a mark, but enough for her to feel. “Not here at your dad’s, but maybe when we go to visit my sister next week?”

“I’m not shagging you in a literal witch’s house.”

“She can’t hex you for anything—I forbid it.”

“We’re still not shagging until we get back to your pla—” She was cut off by the soft sound of knocking, at which she attempted to swat her fiancé away (with little effect) before turning towards the door. “Yeah…?” Dave poked his head in almost sheepishly, locking eyes directly with his daughter.

“Are you…?” he asked. He didn’t seem comfortable continuing her question, which he didn’t need to considering the look on his face.

“No, not yet,” she assured him. “Granddad will be the first to know when there are little Oswalds on the way.” This seemed to satisfy him and he closed the door again, allowing his daughter and surprise son-in-law some privacy. Clara finally pushed off her playful beau and began to unpack the presents from their bags. “Here; take these and we can put them under the tree while we apologize for being inappropriate.”

“Never apologize for being inappropriate; it’s unbecoming,” Basil teased. He took the brightly-wrapped packages from Clara and willingly followed her back down the stairs and into the sitting room where Dave and Linda were having a hushed argument. Their presence put the proceedings on-hold, especially after Basil held out the offerings in a sign of temporary peace.

It was a peace that they all knew to be fragile, mere seconds away from being destroyed at any moment, and the new couple wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

There wasn’t much to the ceremony. Even though Linda had tried to convince her stepdaughter to wait until the summer so that they could get their vicar at a better time (for then he would _not_ be planning for the parish’s hundredth St. George’s Day celebration), Clara and Basil were married instead by his sister, Missy, taking advantage of a weekend in mid-April that was the most convenient for everyone in attendance. Clara’s gran gave her away at the altar, Adrian was her Maid of Honor, and Bill was the Best Lady; the turning around of things made it so the attending humans were more concentrated on the traditions that were turned on their heads instead of the fact that there was a faun and nymph and even a non-Linda-type banshee in the audience, with a witch doing the officiating.

Even as the surrounding well-wishers partied all evening, no one imagined the perils that had to be faced in order for the couple to get to where they were that moment. There was no lindworm, no pard, no stepmother, no unimpressed sister that was going to stop them. They may have known each other for a short time—that much was glaringly true—but they had more behind them than couples that had been together for years and that was what really counted.

* * *

Bill _loved_ babysitting.

From the moment she first held her nephews and niece, she simply _knew_ it’s what she wanted to do while finishing up uni—being the best auntie-nanny by day and a beleaguered upper-level student by night—and there was nothing that would make her not enjoy her choice in life.

“GET OUT OF HERE THIS INSTANT!”

Well, almost nothing.

Bill did a quick check of her charges before investigating. With two toddlers dressed in their shorts and t-shirts at their small table scribbling crayon drawings and the third nowhere in sight, she went towards the bathroom to find that the door was cracked open. It was there she found her girlfriend in the tub and the final tot smacking at the bubbly foam atop the water.

“ _Arthur_ , you know better than to bother Auntie Heather while she’s taking care of nixie things,” Bill scolded gently, scooping the boy up. She bent down to kiss her girlfriend, during which the boy caught a few more fistfuls of bubbles. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“He needs to learn boundaries, _now_ ,” Heather insisted. She sunk lower into the bubbles, with her chin becoming submerged. “Doesn’t he have them at Basil and Clara’s?”

“Plenty of them, but he’s still just a baby.”

“A baby that can turn into a wolf at any minute! I’ll be glad when they’re potty-trained and I can stop worrying about Gran’s lace curtains.”

“The curtains are high up, so I don’t know why you’re so worried,” Bill smirked. She gave Heather a wink and exited the bathroom, leaving the nymph to commune with the water for as long as she needed. Once the boy was with his brother and sister again, she went back to her laptop sitting on the nearby coffee table and continued to write her dissertation.

Three paragraphs further and suddenly Bill had a small, clothed puppy in her lap, staring up at her with the largest eyes possible. “Crikey, Joan, you don’t know what kind of eyes you inherited. Those things are dangerous!” The puppy stood on her hind legs and stared up at her caretaker, whimpering softly. “Very cute, but _very dangerous, young lady_!”

“Ahn Bee! Ahn Bee!” The young woman glanced over and saw the girl’s brothers stomp over to climb all over her. Soon she had a human and puppy in her lap and another puppy resting atop her head, rubbing its snout in her hair happily.

“ ** _Auntie Bill_** ,” she said, reminding them for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. The puppy atop her head sneezed and subsequently turned back into a human, sliding off and landing on his brother and sister. Soon, all three were human and smacking one another. Bill separated them by lifting the boys up, one under each arm, and leaving the girl on the floor as she stood. There was a knock at the door and she groaned in frustration. “It’s open!”

“How are my pups doing?” Basil called out as he entered the flat. He walked into view, which prompted his daughter to toddle over towards him with her arms up and out in excitement. Picking her up, he kissed her nose and placed her on his shoulders before taking his sons from their sitter. “Were they good today?”

“They’re starting to transform smoother,” Bill said. “Percy didn’t cry when Clara dropped him off this morning either.”

“An improvement all the same,” Basil nodded. “Same time tomorrow?”

“You got it.” Bill led her mentor over towards the door and got it for him, letting him back into the world with his pint-sized progeny. “Don’t forget that I have a presentation on Friday and can’t take them then!”

“Don’t worry—Nardole’s overdue for some pack-sitting duties,” Basil chuckled. He carried his children over to the car and made certain all three were firmly contained in their booster seats before getting behind the driver’s wheel. The kids shrieked in glee whenever he would take a turn just a wee bit too tight, or need to stop a bit more sudden than was for comfort, enjoying the jostling they got over the roads that were prone to bumps and their father’s boggling ability to adequately drive while still engaging the parking brake. They pulled into the university’s staff parking before three, with Basil leading his children up to his office, simply trusting that they all followed him once he released them from their booster seats.

It was now a common sight around campus, Doctor Basil Smith-Oswald and his brood, and he took no measure to make his pups less visible.

“This is _still_ not a nursery, sir,” Nardole frowned when he saw his boss enter his office. The children ran towards him and jumped up and down, reaching for the tea tray in his hands, which held their tea snacks. They began babbling angrily when the faun only lifted the tray higher, keeping it _definitely_ out of reach.

“What’s the point of being Dean of Faculty if I can’t abuse my position every once in a while? For the good of the world?” Basil flopped down on a couch and reached for the tea that was laid out for him on the adjacent table.

“I don’t know how these rugrats are for the good of anything—things were much calmer and quieter when you were still a bachelor.” Nardole placed the tea tray on a short, plastic table in the corner of the office dedicated to the triplets’ playthings, allowing them to attack their sippy cups of juice and begin demolishing their snack. “Certainly was less messy in here for a start.”

“No wonder you’re an old maid with faun-pattern baldness and a job where you can be as fussy as possible,” Basil sniped. “You’d have the most boring children ever.”

“I would not.”

“Yes, you would.” Nardole turned his attention towards the door and saw Clara hanging up her jacket and helmet on their pegs by the door. She sat down next to her husband and began to pour herself some tea. “Please refrain from insulting my children from here on out. I know it’s difficult, but what’s also difficult is my understanding why on earth you signed that contract extension at the end of last year, when you knew the children were only months away from walking.”

“Yes ma’am, Mrs. Oswald,” Nardole grumbled. He sulked out of the office; once the door was closed, Basil leaned in to land a kiss behind Clara’s ear.

“It still makes me a bit tingly to hear you refer to as Mrs. Oswald,” he admitted. Their daughter came over to them and crawled into their laps, face and front covered in yogurt. “Oh, would you look at that—we’re getting better at this, aren’t we?” He went and took a napkin from the table and began cleaning her up. “How was work? You’re here early.”

“Power went out thanks to a mishap with the science teacher’s drone,” she explained.

“I knew that lump of mashed potatoes dressed as a person was going to screw up one of these days.” By the time he had cleaned up their daughter, both their sons were over and demanding attention. Soon all three babies were clean and snuggling into their parents, which put a decided end to tea time.

The family stayed silent for a while, the only sounds being the heavy grandfather clock in the corner and Nardole shuffling outside the office door. Basil wrapped his arm around Clara as their children slept on and whispered in her ear.

“Thank you.”

She raised her eyebrow at that. “For what?”

“…for giving me a second chance at this.”

“Thank you, Basil, for exactly the same.”


End file.
